Project description
Transnational spaces and shared values within European mobility networks
From 1883, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) ran the Orient Express between Paris and Istanbul, rerouted after the First World War as the Simplon-Orient Express. Its sleeping and dining cars and CIWL hotels along the route offered a carefully designed environment in which an upper-class clientele performed status and modernity. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the Rail-ID project examines how interior design and comfort technologies such as heating, lighting and hygiene fostered transnational, collective identities between the 1880s and 1940. Comparing CIWL rolling stock, CIWL hotels and emerging non-CIWL hotels in Zagreb and Belgrade, it investigates how these interiors facilitated cross-border transfers of identity and value as well as their impact on shaping Europe ahead of formal political unification.
Objective
This project investigates how interior design, technological innovation, and comfort infrastructures shaped a material culture of transnational mobility networks, enabling the circulation of cosmopolitan values and collective identities across Europe from the 1880s to 1940. It analyses the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) most famous line, Simplon-Orient Express, as a transnational framework where carefully designed interiors functioned as markers of luxury, privilege and socio-economic class identity. It hypothesises that the upper-class clientele identified with cosmopolitan values and modernist aspirations over nationalist discourses, informing transnational, collective identities predating later European political integration.
The study analyses semi-public interiors as a material continuum linking mobile and fixed spaces across the CIWL network. It focuses on three sets of interiors: (1) CIWL rolling stock, including sleeping, restaurant, and lounge cars; (2) CIWL-managed hotels in urban and resort locations; and (3) emerging hotel infrastructures in the Western Balkans (Zagreb, Belgrade), regions often overlooked in studies of European mobility and modernity. By treating these interiors as architectural objects that mediated social interaction, self-representation and identity, the project shows how technology, aesthetics, and design facilitated the transfer of transnational values along mobility networks.
The research combines architectural history, mobility, transportation and tourism studies with material culture, sociology and European studies, embedding archival study, object and spatial analysis and digital humanities. It creates an interdisciplinary methodology to analyse the circulation of identity and values across fixed and mobile spaces in transnational frameworks.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
44139 Dortmund
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.