Paper short abstract:

The appeal of the Mediterranean City has inspired discourses of design and politics in contemporary cities in the Mediterranean region. In this presentation, I explore discourses and urban plans that deploy imaginaries of the Mediterranean city as an emblem of the past and as a vision of the future.

Paper long abstract:

Literature on the Mediterranean as a unit of analysis repeatedly discusses the Mediterranean city as a key component of this geography. In earlier historical and anthropological accounts, the Mediterranean city shared certain characteristics such a cosmopolitan culture and an identity that was distinct from the surrounding region and closer to the sea. These characterizations of the Mediterranean cities, glorified in Fernand Braudel's work, for instance, were later criticized for being too romanticizing and imbued with postcolonial nostalgia. The romanticized cosmopolitan Mediterranean city also vanished with the rise of nationalism. And yet, the appeal of the Mediterranean City continues to inspire discourses of design and politics in contemporary cities in the Mediterranean region. In this presentation, I take up two recent cases of such appeal to the Mediterranean city: one is the case of Barcelona, Spain, where in recent public discourse, officials hail the city as a "Mediterranean" (as opposed to Spanish) city; the second is the appeal of the Mediterranean city in new urban planning proposals of Tirana, Albania. I explore official and unofficial discourses and urban plans that deploy similar imaginaries of the Mediterranean city as an emblem of the past and the vision of a future urban utopia. What counts as "Mediterranean" in these official and unofficial imaginaries of the Mediterranean city? What are the points of references, histories, geographies that inform these shared imaginaries of the Mediterranean city? What new geographies of the Mediterranean region can we draw from these claims to these idealized Mediterranean cities?