From literature to architecture: a dive into urban utopia in Orléans
The FRAC Centre-Val de Loire and the Charles Péguy Center in Orléans (Loiret) have partnered to present the history of utopian cities. The exhibition offers a journey from the 19th to the 21st century through visionary texts, plans, and models.
By Christian PanvertThe Charles Péguy Center in Orléans (Loiret) is hosting an exhibition this summer and through November devoted to "ideal cities, from the 19th to the 21st century," in partnership with the Regional Contemporary Art Fund. A manuscript by Charles Péguy opens the exhibition. Entitled "Marcel, First Dialogue of the Harmonious City," this text is dated 1896.
The writer, born on January 7, 1873 at 50, rue du Faubourg-Bourgogne in Orléans, into a modest family , wrote it when he was a student. He takes up the idea of utopia introduced in France by François Rabelais. He asks the question: how to build an ideal city while remaining in the spirit of places that are not achievable, and which remains in the realm of thought?
But, over the centuries, the reasoning will end up leading to concrete achievements, from the 19th century with the phalanstery of Charles Fourier then the familistère of Jean-Baptiste Godin , before materializing in vast architectural projects in the 20th century: in France with Le Corbusier and Renée Gailhoustet or even in the Netherlands with the Italian architect Gian Piero Frassinelli.
The exhibition explores the idea of urban utopia, starting with literary thought and extending to architectural experimentation. This explains the partnership with the FRAC Centre-Val de Loire. The question of utopia occupies a very important place in its collections. The models and drawings resonate with the texts and manuscripts of the Charles Péguy Center.
The exhibition presents a collection of archives, works, plans and drawings, models and videos from the heritage collections of the Orléans media library, the Charles Péguy Center, the Regional Contemporary Art Fund and other partner institutions.
Practical: the exhibition “Ideal Cities? Writing, Drawing and Living in Utopia from the 19th to the 21st Century” can be discovered until November 8, 2025, from Tuesday to Saturday, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the Charles Péguy Center, 11, rue du Tabour, in Orléans.
Le Parisien
