When culture meets growth

Every year a few European cities simultaneously become the same capital - a European Capital of Culture, to be precise. Could such a title do  for the cultural infrastructure and the international profile of a city what upcoming events such as Euro 2012 are doing for their host cities?

Mladen Petrov

Over 1,500 events visited by more than 1.5 mln guests and one shut down website. In 2009 Vilnius, together with Linz, became the European Capital of Culture (ECOC). Thus Vilnius also became the first city from an  EU 10 country to host this large-scale event. Prior to this, only Prague and Kraków had been given such an opportunity, in 2000, when due to the significance of the year nine cities were designated as ECOCs.

Greek history
In 1985 Athens was chosen to be the first ECOC. So far more than 40 cities across Europe have been bestowed with this honour by the Council of Ministers of the European Union, and there are many more to come. Last year Pécs shared the title with Istanbul and Essen, while this year all eyes are on Tallinn and Turku. In the next few years other CEE cities, such as Maribor (2012), Košice (2013), Riga (2014) and Plzeň (2015), are to host the event. Five cities are now still fighting to be the Polish host in 2016 out of the eleven that originally threw their hats into the ring, with Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Katowice and Lublin remaining in the game.
The title does not only guarantee that a number of cultural events will take place. For the host cities it represents an opportunity for social and economic benefits, as well as for the revitalisation of urban areas, a change in the city's image and an enhancement of its profile abroad. How did Kraków benefit from the event? The majority of key investments in the city linked to the event were renovation projects. The Polish Institute for Tourism's data shows that the city saw a 20 pct increase in tourists in 2000. Foreign guests accounted for 56 pct of visitors - up on the figure of 45 pct in 1999. The most frequent criticism of the event was that the ECOC created no cultural infrastructure for the city, especially a much needed new concert hall.

Flexing their muscles
The five Polish cities remaining on the battlefield are determined to achieve more than just a new concert hall for their citizens. Paweł Kaftański, the project coordinator of Sport, Tourism and the Private Sector at Gdańsk 2016, admits that the candidacy and the eventual hosting would give the city an impulse to bring forward cultural infrastructure investment which would otherwise have been put on hold until the return of better times. "Lublin can't be ECOC without the appropriate infrastructure. Our ambition to host the event is also among the reasons why there are so many ongoing projects in the city which will bring new fresh public spaces," adds Michał Karapuda, the coordinator of the rival Lublin 2016 European Capital of Culture project. "On the city's priority list are projects such as a centre for culture in the former Powizytkowski convent, the renovation of Teatr Stary (Old Theatre) and the highly anticipated Intercultural Centre (Centrum Spotkania Kultur)," explains Michał Karapuda.
In 2016 visitors to Lublin will be landing at the new Lublin-Świdnik airport, from where they will need only a few minutes to get to the centre of the city, which has been recently revitalised. Those who decide to get to Lublin by car also have less reason to worry as they should be able to rely on new express roads, such as the S12, S17 and S19. One could also take the train - by 2016 the journey from Warsaw should not take more than  90 minutes. The improved infrastructure will help visitors get to Lublin hassle-free for whichever event they choose from the programme. However, all this comes at a certain price - all the planned new infrastructural investment and modernisation projects by 2015 are to cost EUR 598.5 mln, while the 2016 programme itself is to cost EUR 28 mln.
The planned investment in Gdańsk already includes ongoing projects such as Młode Miasto, a new district which is to rise on the area of the Gdańsk shipyard and is to become the city's new centre. In this district the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre is to be built. "This would be the first theatre in Poland in the last twenty years to be built entirely from scratch," claims Paweł Kaftański. Furthermore, the city is planning to put an emphasis on revitalisation, by opening a branch of the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art in the Nowy Port district, among other projects. The city is also to invest in a floating gallery, an art platform serving the city's districts when docked in such berths as Nowy Port and Dolne Miasto. The winning concept was submitted by Lucyna Nyka. "The city is ready for hosting big events and the upcoming Euro 2012 has only enhanced our capacities," Paweł Kaftański adds.
Why is Warsaw also applying to be a host? "There is a lot going on here, but Europe doesn't know about it," remarked Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, the major of Warsaw, during a recent press conference at which the shortlisted cities were announced. The budget for the period 2011?2017 has been set at PLN 252 mln (EUR 64.3 mln).  Concerns were expressed that the project might turn out to be under-budgeted, but in Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz's view this is "a realistic figure". The timing for the city seems perfect - the  Fryderyk Chopin Museum and the Copernicus Science Centre have already been opened, with construction work now progressing on the site of the future Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Important institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and Nowy Teatr (New Theatre) are also expected to have moved to eagerly-anticipated new buildings by 2016. The event also gives the city authorities another opportunity to look across to the neglected east side of the Vistula river and continue with revitalisation efforts. The integration of a city divided by the river, and the further establishment of the once-notorious Praga district as one of the capital's art centres, remains high on Warsaw's ECOC agenda.

Something old, something new
In the case of Pécs the title meant something more than just an opportunity to host countless cultural events in 2010. "All five key city development projects linked with the ECOC were realised. Four of them - Kodály Conference and Concert  Centre, South-Transdanubian Regional Library and Knowledge Centre, the reconstruction of  Museum Street and the revitalisation of public spaces in the city - have already been completed and opened to the public, and one is still partly under construction: the reconstruction of the city's porcelain factory into a cultural quarter. This is probably the largest-scale renovation project for a building complex of historic value in Central Europe. The 41,000 sqm Zsolnay Quarter should become the core of the city's cultural life in the future," explains Csaba Ruzsa, the managing director of the Pécs 2010 ECOC programme.
The city had a budget of around EUR 120 mln for the realisation of key projects at its disposal. Around 85 pct of this amount came from EU funds through tendering procedures, while a further 10 pct was provided by the Hungarian government and the remainder was covered by the city of Pécs. The city was visited by around 900,000 guests, which represents a significant increase on the 2009 figures.
The 157-page programme of events in Tallinn, one of the two 2011 European Capitals of Culture, is expected to boost the number of visitors by 10-15 pct for the year. The Estonian capital is still partly a construction site. The new Bastion Tunnels museum, attached to Tallinn City Museum, has now been opened, while the Maritime Museum's new building is still a work in progress. "It is due to open in autumn as the most state-of-the-art maritime museum in Northern Europe. The project is being financed both by the government and the EU. We have not cooperated with private investors on any of these projects," declares Jaanus Mutli, a member of the board of Foundation Tallinn 2011.
In Košice, one of the 2013 capitals, the focus is on urban revitalisation projects. "The city is mostly planning the reconstruction of buildings that have lost their previous purpose, such as the former military warehouses that are to be turned into a new culture and creativity district," reveals Zora Jaurova, the director of Košice 2013. The budget for the event has been set at EUR 60 mln, with 95 pct of the financing coming from structural funds, while the remainder is the subject of co-financing. The EUR 20 mln Kasárne/KulturPark project is aimed at the transformation of the military warehouses located on Kukučínova street. According to the concept, three functional buildings will be reopened on the site, including a cultural centre, a centre for education in the field of culture and creative economy and exhibition areas. Also on the priority list is the transformation of an existing amphitheatre into a modern multi-purpose hall in an EUR 8 mln project. After the reconstruction work is completed the hall will have 4,000 seats.

Why bother?
For those cities willing to successfully monetise the privilege of being a capital of culture the hard work in fact starts after the event has officially ended. The challenge for such cities is to keep the momentum going by turning some of the programme into regular events, keeping foreign interest alive and the economic performance of the city at a high level. A 2004 study by the European commission looked for the first time at the impact ECOCs have on the cities. "Improving city economic performance was an aspiration for all the ECOC cities, but apart from tourism and certain major city infrastructure investment, there is little evidence of a genuine effort to address economic performance in any thorough way," the report says.
The study found that in the period 1995?2003, host cities saw an average growth in the number of tourists of 7 to 12 pct in the ECOC year, and a fall of almost 4 pct for the following year. Nevertheless, as the study suggests, the tourism increases in ECOC host cities are not all due to the impact of the event, as in most of the years leading up to 2000 there was a fairly steady increase in tourist overnights in  European cities of about 2 pct per annum.
The title, as Vilnius' case shows, does not automatically guarantee an influx of visitors. In the first half-year of 2009, 229,181 guests stayed in Vilnius hotels and guesthouses, which is 19.9 pct less than during the same period in 2008. The city expected the tourism flow to be increased by at least 15 pct in Vilnius and Lithuania overall and that at least 3 mln people would attend the scheduled events. But the reality turned out to be rather different, with only around 1.5 mln turning up instead.
The study also looked into the reasons for which the event is widely criticised. The most common negative views about aspects of the ECOC scheme included: the designation is motivated too much by politics, the opportunity was not exploited sufficiently by many cities, and there was under-investment by some cities in terms of thought, time and financial resources. Furthermore, the idea of having several cities designated each year has devalued the importance of the title. Participants also complained about the apparent lack of interest from the  EU as evidenced by low levels of funding. "After  20 years, the programme has now lost its meaning", "Too many cities have been complete failures" - are but two of the critical comments in the report.
The clock is now ticking. The Polish cities and the other CEE hosts before them still have some time to learn from their forerunners' experience. The winning Polish city will be announced in the second quarter of 2012.