Culture at the heart of transformation 2005

English version
French version
German version

Assesses the transformative effects and lessons learnt from 12 long term co-operation projects in South Eastern Europe - Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Albania - which used great diversity of culturally driven approaches and projects to development. Provides an  .....

Painted Tirana 2005

The mayor of Tirana in Albania Edi Rama is renowned for his strategy of painting the city. It is rumoured that for a number of years 4% of the city budget was spent on paint. The grey buildings of socialist Tirana are disappearing rapidly in a shock of colour that  .....

Culture at the Crossroads 2006

This highly acclaimed short book explores the disquiet on the cultural front brought about by clashes between commerce and culture and how to think through the dilemmas

Intercultural city article 2005

We contrast the ‘intercultural’ with the ‘multicultural city’ in which at its best we acknowledge and ideally celebrate our differing cultures that in essence remain separate. In the intercultural city we move one step beyond and rather than focusing on what is different we concentrate on what we can do together as diverse cultures  .....

An integrated approach to culture & urban regeneration French version 2006

FRENCH VERSION

See English version

Age of the City - Creativity and the city 2005

The aim of creative city making is to think of your city as a living work of art, where citizens can involve and engage themselves in the creation of a transformed place. This will require different creativities: The creativity of the engineer, the social worker, the planner, the business person,  .....

Balancing Act Strategic Dilemmas in Cultural Policy 2002

The age of the command economy has passed. Governments across the continent increasingly recognise the limitations on their ability to make things happen. The complexity of contemporary society and the interdependency of local and national economies mean that Governments must influence rather than direct change. They must work with and through a vast range  .....

Culture & Regeneration An evaluation of the Evidence 2004

Arguments about the role of culture in urban development still rage. This document seeks to summarize the state of the art of British work by assembling the available economic, social, cultural and environmental focused documents to substantiate the claims. Includes a helpful typology.

Innnovative and Sustainable European Cities 2005

The enclosed report is intended to serve as an overall evaluation of databases of urban best practices as part of the final review of the European Foundation's Innovations for the Urban Environment Programme. It falls into four parts. ° Part One discusses the nature of innovation, best practice, benchmarking and our broader definition of sustainability. °  .....

The Learning City and the Learning Age 1999

In Praise of Learning: Towards the Learning City

This pamphlet argues that new understandings and definitions of learning and the learning society are critical to the future success of British cities. Learning is not only part of new skills development and the economic advantage that cities must cultivate, learning is also central to the way cities evolve new forms of self-governance. All new  .....

Imagination and regeneration Cultural Policy and the Future of Cities 2004

Imagination and regeneration' reviews how the debate on culture and cities has developed world-wide over the last two decades. Written for the Council of Europe to help their cultural programme the first part takes a broad historical sweep and the second is more like  .....

Graffiti Alley and further graffiti delights 2005

The collection based on 'Graffiti Alley' in Toronto has over 60 images. The alley runs south of Queen Street, which was once the edgy and alternative street of the city. As it slowly gentrified many felt displaced and occupied the backstreets. After many years the city ‘allowed’ the graffiti to  .....

Risk consciousness and the creation of liveable cities 2005

The evaluation of everything from a perspective of risk is a defining characteristic of contemporary society. Risk is the managerial paradigm and default mechanism that has embedded itself into how companies, community organizations and the public sector operate. Risk is a prism through which any activity is judged. Risk has its experts, consultants, interest groups,  .....

Can Artists Make Great Places 2006

Do professionals concerned with city making change their mind about what they do when they involve artists. The answer is yes. Artists on the other hand are unfortunately less flexible in trying to learn from the other professionals.

The Value and values of culture 2006

It is time to move on from trying to prove that culture is important. Global issues are far too important to dally around. No development process or project can work effectively and inefficiently without including a cultural perspective.

Being innovative against the odds 1999

This introductory chapter seeks to provide an overview of innovativeness and how it can be applied to the community-based sustainability agenda. It draws on examples along the way highlighting different aspects of innovative action. It stresses how it is easier to be innovative as an individual than as an organization, community or  .....

Capturing Imaingation - Rethinking Adelaide 2003

This is the final report of the Thinker in Residency programme. It contributed heavily to the section of The Art of City Making called 'Rethinking Cities'. It is a useful document in terms of practically working through what 'rethinking' actually means in a city.

Harnessiong the power of culture for compettive advantage 2003

An extensive report covering the recent trends in thinking about the role of culture in creating urban economic success. It looks at how decisions about locations are changing and the role of icons, festivals, large scale sporting events and good quality urban design A number of case studies of cities  .....

The Art of Regeneration 1999

Cultural projects have played an increasingly important role in British urban regeneration since the mid-1980s, but recent developments have focused less on capital projects, and more on the capacity of arts activity to support community-led renewal. This book, based on over 10 years’ experience of art and urban regeneration policy in the UK and abroad.  .....

The Learning City Region OECD 2001

Approaching problems of concept, measurement, evaluation

Evaluation depends on a clear understanding of the subject of the evaluation—in this case the ‘learning city’. But what can we mean by such a term? With the growing emphasis on the concept of a learning society, in which the individual has greater ‘leisure’ time while simultaneously being increasingly responsible for his or her own  .....

Perth - Town or City 2007

The result of the 'Creative Capital Thinker in Residence' programme. A rather provocative document, which may be useful for those wishing to assess how a city's psychology can be shifted in order to maximize its opportunities.

City of Painted Doors - Valloria, Italy 2005

Valloria, an Italian village in the hinterland of Imperia, Liguria, has been revitalized by painted doors. Somewhat isolated, it was on the verge of dramatic decline until a local activist decided to invite artists to paint doors. Ten years later 72 artists have painted doors and the village has been  .....

What makes museums special 2004

The 1st Kenneth Hudson Lecture on the occasion of the European Museums of the Year Award

Superficially the world of museums seems buoyant; their growth continues worldwide, and they are usually built by an architectural star. The October 2001 issue of ARTnews in its global survey alone listed £2.8billion worth of new museums, refurbishments and extensions. And that figure even omitted a large number of UK novelties. Why is there  .....

An integrated approach to culture & urban regeneration 2006

The European Commission's URBACT programme seeks to encourage innovation in cities. This report is based on collaboration and projects happening in 14 Europe cities such as Naples, Santander, Amsterdam, Lille, Manchester, Birmingham and Maribor. They were part of a network that looked at how cultural aspects can be integrated into  .....

Lineages of the Creative City 2006

Creativity is like a rash

Everyone is now in the creativity game. Creativity has become a mantra of our age endowed almost exclusively with positive virtues. Twenty British cities at the last count call themselves creative. From Creative Manchester to Bristol to Plymouth to Norwich and of course Creative London. And ditto Canada. Toronto with its Culture Plan for  .....

Rethinking the creative city 2003

‘Rethinking the Creative City’ is based on thinking and work undertaken as Thinker in Residence in Adelaide and for Adelaide in 2003 and I thank the premier of South Australia and the partners in my visit for providing the opportunity to clarify these ideas. The Creative City concept claims to be a new paradigm  .....

Creative Lewisham - the Lewisham Culture & Urban Development Commission 2002

The Mayor of Lewisham felt it was time to ‘seize the moment’ of change and opportunity and he asked me in November 2000 to chair the Culture and Urban Development Commission. The aim of the Commission has been to explore and recommend to the Council the step changes needed to transform Lewisham into  .....

How innovative is Emscher Park 1999

Innovation in a non-innovative setting

The IBA-Emscher Park project in the middle of the Ruhr area - Germany's most industrialized zone is one of the most comprehensively thought through and innovative urban regenreation projects. Emscher Park in Germany is the name given to the 70 km long area comprising 800 sq. km straddling the Emscher river in which 2 million  .....

The Creative City in Britain and Germany 1996

The Creative City workshop took place in Glasgow in May 1994, sponsored by the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society with additional support from Glasgow City Council and the Glasgow Development Agency. The conference involved experts from five British and five German cities; Bristol, Cologne, Dresden, Essen, Glasgow, Karlsruhe, Kirklees, Leicester, Milton  .....

Indicators of Vitality & Viability 1994

A Methodology for Assessing Urban Viability and Vitality

This paper has one central objective: to establish a system of indicators to assess the 'health' of cities in Britain which are more sophisticated than those currently in existence. Although the value of creativity for self-expression is recognized, the chief purpose of acting creatively in urban policy-making must be to achieve vitality in a  .....