La Ville Sensuelle: Seeking a ‘Better City, Better Life’ in the French Pavilion

By way of a peripatetic journey through the French pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai International Exposition, this article queries what the experience of the pavilion may have meant to the millions of Chinese who experienced ‘La Ville Sensuelle’ and emplaced themselves in its many virtual environments, capturing the experience with digital photography . The author argues that the pavilion, perhaps unwittingly, fulfils the larger Chinese political objective of nurturing a more sophisticated consumer by virtue of increasing their personal suzhi or quality, while leaving a deep and lasting imprint of Paris as the ultimate sensual city on and in their bodies.