Exhibitions, Videos & Projects

‘The Art of Creative City Making’ Exhibition

Charles was offered the opportunity to create an exhibition of his life’s work by Andrea Bartoli from Farm Cultural Park, in Favara, Sicily, which runs a biennale of cities called Countless Cities. Special thanks should go to Marco Raino, who curated the exhibition and BRH+ who designed it. A feature on the exhibition can be viewed here.

Subsequently the exhibition travelled to Lecce.

A number of interesting videos were shot which capture the flavour and spirit of the exhibition. The first of these is an interview between Charles and Andrea Bartoli and then there is a visual walkthrough of the exhibition itself.

Andrea and his wife Florinda Saieva have incredible achievements in transforming a backwater into a globally recognized hub of regeneration through arts and cultural projects. From a place with perhaps a 1000 tourists a year this has grown to over a 100,000.

The design of ‘The Art of Creative City Making’

Read the review

‘The Art of Creative City Making’ Videos

Below, Charles describes the 5 main themes of the exhibition – in a series of short 3 minute videos that describe his overall work:

In order to publicise the event, Charles Landry and the team take a fun open-top lorry ride through the city.

A selection of interviews and talks

Here is a small selection of interviews and talks I have given in the last period:

Charles in Conversation

PLACE! 2023, Kosice

Do cities make you healthy or ill?

The Future of Government Bureaucracy

In conversation with Ramon Marrades of Placemaking Europe for HEC Montreal

In conversation at the WRLDCTY conference – interview with Andrew Carter CEO of the Centre for Cities.

Talk at the Institute of Public Administration Australia conference, Adelaide

The Creative Bureaucracy: What , why & how

The Post-Pandemic City, Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

Urbanistica interview with Mustifa Sherif

In conversation with Ramon Marrades of Placemaking Europe for HEC Montreal

Foundations Platform F20, Milano

EUniverCities, conference keynote, June 2022

European Academy of Science, Ukraine

Typo Talks – I hope to make you feel completely giddy

The civic city in a nomadic world

Listen to conversation as podcasts

Charles in conversation with Adrian Ellis of AEA and Global Cultural District Network and his Three Bells podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-11-civic-creativity-and-creative-bureaucracy/id1561951911?i=1000543716639

What is Creative Bureaucracy? Why does it matter?

What is Creative Bureaucracy? Why does it matter?

Free Books


Book 1. The Origins & Futures of the Creative City

The city faces an escalating crisis that cannot be solved by a ‘business as usual’ approach, including the challenge of living together with great diversity and difference, addressing the sustainability agenda, rethinking its role and purpose to survive well economically, culturally and socially and to manage increasing complexity. These are some of the future priorities for creativity. Creativity needs to address the issues that really matter globally.

Download as PDF


Book 2. The Sensory Landscape of Cities

This is the second in a series of short publications, which seek to briefly encapsulate key agendas and thought movements that shape cities today and will have an impact on their future. The city is a communications device. It speaks to us through every fibre of its being. The lived urban experience comes from a circular sensory cycle. The Sensory Landscape of Cities, sees the city as a 360-degree, enveloping, immersive experience, which has emotional and psychological impacts. It argues that we sense, feel and understand it through increasingly narrow funnels
of perception.

Download as PDF


Book 3. The Creative City Index

The Creative City Index assesses the creative pulse of places by exploring their urban dynamics, processes and projects. It differs from most indexes by looking at the city as an integrated whole from an insider and outsider perspective through a series of ten broad crosscutting domains.

Download as PDF


Book 4. Culture & Commerce – The Royal Academy & Mayfair

Culture and commerce co-exist in creative tension. Their values and aims can be sharply opposed. There is a need to find the fragile balance. This is true for culture in both the big sense, such as our wish to remain true to ourselves, and the narrower sense of expression through the arts. The desire for artistic integrity can conflict with the exigencies of the market.

Download as PDF


Book 5. The Fragile City

Cities are the most complex artefact created by human beings and their most significant investment. They make civilisations manifest. They drive cultures, they embody their values and are crucial to development. Cities are hubs of creativity and potential. They are accelerators of opportunity, force feeding transactions and connections. Skills, talent and expertise cluster in them as do trade, commerce and industries.

Download as PDF


Book 6. Cities of Ambition

Cities of Ambition is the result of a long term endeavour to understand how cities make the most of their potential and why some cities do more with their tangible and intangible resources than others. It summarizes the collective insights, intelligence and knowledge of insiders, those running cities or contributing to them as business people, politicians, officials, activists and informed outsiders, such as urban advisors, researchers or commentators.

Download as PDF


Book 7. The Digitized City

The digitized city is already with us, but it needs a jointly created vision of where next. Digitization represents a tectonic shift providing computing with an immense force. Its devices are changing society and social life, culture, levels of connectivity, the economy as well as cities. These devices are both liberating and potentially invasive.

Download as PDF


Book 8. Psychology & the City

Being in a city is a two-way psychological process. The city impacts upon our mind — our mental and emotional state impacts upon the city. This is part of a constant cycle of influencing and being influenced, perpetual transactions changing moment to moment as our daily lived experience unfolds, with repercussions both for us and for the city in ways we cannot always be aware of.

Download as PDF


Book 9. The Creative Bureaucracy

Public bureaucracies across the globe face a converging, escalating crisis. Our societies are increasingly unequal. The population is ageing and they have fewer resources to respond to the growing need for care services. Demands for affordable living conditions are increasing as public space declines. Frenzied finance movements are rattling domestic economies. Mass migration is engendering fear and uncertainty. This accounts for some sudden and dangerous responses to overcome the effects of a turbo-charged capitalism.

Download as PDF