“The Afterlife of the Medieval Street”
John M. Ganim

The image of the medieval city holds a complicated place in the history of urban planning and urban theory after the Middle Ages, forming an interesting thread in the larger history of medievalism.  Victorian World’s Fairs often included a medieval section, and even in scientific and technological exhibitions, medieval displays were used as allures and entries into the display of the modern.   This paper will be accompanied by illustrations of medieval installations at exhibitions beginning with the Crystal Palace, moving through the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London, where among the displays of Southeast Asian artifacts, flora and fauna, England itself is represented by an “Old London” street, constructed of a more or less general melange of pre-Great Fire London. At the 1889 International Exhibition, the Eiffel Tower was originally surrounded by “villages,” many of which simulated streets from medieval cities, but these were grouped with non-European and colonial pavilions. Modern and postmodern city planning, illustrated briefly here, carry on this complex representation and use of the medieval street.