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| Les Cités Obscures | |
|---|---|
| Title | Les Cités Obscures |
| Publisher | Casterman |
| Date | 1983–present |
| Writers | Benoît Peeters |
| Artists | François Schuiten |
| Creators | Benoît Peeters; François Schuiten |
| Genre | Fantasy; Science fiction; Architectural fiction |
Les Cités Obscures
Les Cités Obscures is a Franco-Belgian graphic novel series created by Benoît Peeters and François Schuiten, combining elements of Surrealism, Utopianism, Dystopian fiction, Art Nouveau, and Bruegel-inspired urban vistas. The series weaves architectural speculation linked to Victor Horta, Hannes Meyer, Le Corbusier, Antonio Gaudí, and Frank Lloyd Wright into narrative forms that reference Georges Perec, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Gustave Flaubert, and Marcel Proust.
The fictional corpus presents an alternate cultural continuum where cities like Bruges, Prague, Venice, Lisbon, Paris, and Vienna resonate with imagined counterparts influenced by Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, and Austria. Through albums, exhibitions, and catalog essays the series dialogues with institutions such as the Musée du Louvre, Centre Pompidou, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, and Museum of Modern Art. Iconic motifs recall works by Gustav Klimt, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, Eugène Atget, and Joseph Cornell.
The collaboration began when Benoît Peeters—a scholar linked to University of Liège and Sorbonne—met François Schuiten—an illustrator trained at École Saint-Luc and influenced by Hergé, Moebius, Jacques Tardi, Enki Bilal, and Jean-Claude Mézières. Financial and editorial support arrived from Casterman, with introductions via figures connected to Tintin, Spirou, Métal Hurlant, Pilote, and L'Écho des Savanes. Peeters' critical essays echo methodologies used in studies of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Walter Benjamin, and Gaston Bachelard.
The setting comprises autonomous city-states named in the series alongside evocative topographies resembling Flanders Fields, the Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, and the North Sea. Themes engage with Modernism, Industrial Revolution, Art Nouveau, Renaissance, Baroque, Romanticism, Colonialism, Totalitarianism, and Bureaucracy as examined through narrative techniques akin to Magic realism, Speculative fiction, and Philosophical fiction. Recurring tensions parallel episodes from French Revolution, Paris Commune, World War I, and World War II, while referencing thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Georges Orwell, and Aldous Huxley.
The albums were initially serialized in magazines associated with Tintin magazine, Spirou magazine, and Métal Hurlant before collected editions by Casterman and translations by publishers like Dark Horse Comics, NBM Publishing, Galimatias, Les Humanoïdes Associés, and Drawn & Quarterly. Exhibition catalogs appeared at venues including the Institut du Monde Arabe, Musée d'Orsay, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Grand Palais, Centre de la Vieille Charité, and touring shows curated with help from Stedelijk Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich, and Tate Modern.
Notable volumes include titles that parallel narrative structures found in The Invention of Morel, The Castle, Invisible Cities, and The City & The City, forming story arcs comparable to The Sandman, Watchmen, Maus, Persepolis, and Asterios Polyp. Specific albums map onto exhibitions and essays by scholars from Université Libre de Bruxelles, Université Paris-Sorbonne, Columbia University, Harvard University, and Yale University.
Protagonists and recurring figures evoke archetypes akin to personas in works by Gustave Doré, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Emile Zola, and Victor Hugo, interacting with institutions such as Academie royale de Belgique and societies similar to Royal Institute of British Architects, Société des Beaux-Arts, UNESCO, and European Cultural Foundation. Supporting roles recall characters from Les Misérables, The Trial, Don Quixote, and Le Fantôme de l'Opéra in terms of dramatic function.
Schuiten's penwork references techniques employed by Gustave Doré and Eugène Delacroix, while his compositions recall perspectives used by Albrecht Dürer, Piranesi, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Canaletto. The architectural imaginary synthesizes elements of Art Deco, Beaux-Arts, Brutalism, Constructivism, and De Stijl, with visual research drawing on archives from Bibliothèque nationale de France, Royal Library of Belgium, Archives nationales, and architectural treatises by Vitruvius, Le Corbusier, Camillo Sitte, and Adolf Loos.
The series influenced graphic novelists and architects linked to Chris Ware, Paul Pope, Katsuhiro Otomo, Hayao Miyazaki, Moebius, Will Eisner, and Art Spiegelman, and inspired academic inquiry at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Princeton University, University of Cambridge, Oxford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Awards and recognition include nods from juries at Angoulême International Comics Festival, Eisner Awards, Prix Saint-Michel, Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, and institutional acquisitions by Bibliothèque nationale de France, Museum of Modern Art, and Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.