Experiencing transition in modern urbanization
TRANSITION Session at the 17th conference of the European Association for Urban History, Barcelona, Spain.
Time: 4 September 2026, 11:15-15:45
How can we understand urbanization not only as a story of growth, planning, and modernization, but as something people lived through, sensed, negotiated, and remembered?
At this year’s European Association for Urban History conference in Barcelona, we are organizing the session Experiencing Transition in Modern Urbanization. The session explores transition as a perspective for studying urban–rural change in the twentieth century and beyond.
Rather than following a simple narrative from countryside to town, city, and metropolis, the session opens up more varied histories of urbanization. It brings together papers on everyday life, migration, welfare, sensory experience, belonging, architecture, urban fringes, and spaces in between.
The session is organized by TRANSITION Lead Investigator Mikkel Thelle and Junior Investigator Kristian Aarup together with TRANSITION Collaborative Investigator Tanja Vahtikari.
The following people are presenting their papers in our session:
- Stephanie Weismann, Dr.
Sniffing Out the Urban Stairwell: Olfactory Experiences of Socialist “Urbanization”
- Christian Steentofte Andersen, Postdoc & Junior Investigator
The Welfare City in Transition: Copenhagen Gentrification Narratives as Source of Experience
- Gergely Baics, Professor
“Transitional City”: The Built and Social Environments of 19th-Century New York’s Irregular Settlements
- Pia Quist, Professor & Director of Centre
Conceptualizing Transition: Mobility, Place, and Everyday Life
- Lisbeth Hollensen, Museum Curator & Bitten Larsen, Museum Curator
Dreams of Welfare and Liveability in the Golden Age of Danish Architecture: An Investigation of How the Welfare Society Changed Lives in the Transitioning Suburbs in Early Post-War Denmark
- Joseph Prestel, Lecturer
Migration to Europe as Rural–Urban Transition: The Experience of Palestinians in West Berlin, 1970s–90s
- Ida Ograjsek Gorenjak, Asst. Professor
Traveling Through Transitions: The Perception of the Balkans in Helen Franklin’s Diaries (1910–1912)
- Dorothee Brantz, Professor
Urbanizing the Seaside: Summer Vacation as Seasonal Transition in Europe in the Early 20th Century - Marjaana Niemi, Professor
Beyond the Grand Narrative: Urban Fringe as a Site of Transition and Belonging in Helsinki 1900–1930 - Norman Frazier, PhD student
The Home of Heinrich Zille: Tenements in Working-Class Berlin, 1853–1926