Interieur van een zaal in het stadhuis te Nancy before 1896

This anonymous print presents the interior of a hall in the city hall of Nancy. The image captures the Salon Carré, also known as the Academy room. This space, dripping in chandeliers, framed by large paintings, and lined with symmetrical benches, speaks to the values of the French elite and their relationship to the construction of civic identity and social class. In its emphasis on symmetry, proportion, and ornamentation, the print reveals the way state buildings become stages for displays of power. What does it mean to be a citizen when your civic spaces are styled after royal palaces? The picture offers a vision of the space but in black and white, it is drained of the color and life that might animate such a place. This echoes the tension between the promise of revolutionary ideals and the persistent structures of class and privilege that shape even the most public of spaces.