DOI: 10.5176/2251-2195_CSEIT17.58
Authors: Liz Gardiner, Fablevision, Prof Katarzyna Kosmala
Abstract: As contemporary Cultural Studies broadens its base from Arts and Heritage to embrace place making, urban regeneration and city planning, this paper asks whether or not Cultural Planning methodology has something to offer in the contemporary landscape.Cultural Studies, historically, had a sectoral focus on “the arts”. Recent thinking and research has helped to broaden the base of Contemporary Cultural Studies from the Arts and Heritage to embrace place making, regeneration and city planning (Landry, 2000). This paper asks what Cultural Planning methodology can offer in the contemporary landscape of urban regeneration. Can place making and socio-economic development incorporate cultural resources in ways that are more than tokenistic, but actually capture and celebrate the “DNA” of the place? In the 20th century UK, Arts and Culture were often seen as separate from other aspects of urbanism. There were polarised positions that either insisted on “art for arts’ sake” or treated the arts and artists instrumentally; perceived as useful for tackling issues and problems in socio-economic disadvantage areas. Postindustrial cities continue to suffer from this perpetuated disconnect between culture and urban regeneration, leading to homogenization of urban design and the proliferation of “non-places” made of housing and retail developments that could be seen as being located anywhere. This paper explores the potential of cultural planning as an applied methodology in the post-industrial urban landscape as an access to understanding how meaning can be generated and disseminated from the cultural sphere into the social, political and economic spheres in pursuit of building alternative futures. Three examples of waterfront heritage zones case studies in Europe will be examined: Govan in Glasgow, Scotland with a long history of shipbuilding spread over 17 yards along the River Clyde which now has one working ship yard remaining, Gdansk (Poland), the home of the Solidarity movement that impacted so hugely on the politics of the Eastern Block, whose few remaining shipyards are operational, (some building luxury yachts), and Gothenburg in Sweden which is undergoing a masterplanning process that seems to ignore its shipbuilding heritage altogether
Keywords: cultural studies, cultural planning; artist intervention, urban regeneration
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