Global Culture, Civic Competition, Social Impact: Building for the Arts in the 21st Century

Global Culture, Civic Competition, Social Impact: Building for the Arts in the 21st Century

A discussion with Arthur Cohen, Adrian Ellis, Victoria Newhouse, Joshua Prince-Ramus, and Annabelle Selldorf

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Twenty years ago, the Guggenheim Bilbao opened to widespread acclaim, generating a great deal of new tourism and an economic upswing in this Basque city. A worldwide scramble to duplicate the “Bilbao Effect” was set in motion, as cities everywhere sought to use investment in striking new buildings for culture to spur economic development. While it seemed that there was a hiatus in ambitious cultural projects during the 2007-2009 recession, the number of projects underway now, and the amounts of money being invested, suggest that that was just a temporary pause. The Cultural Infrastructure Index compiled for the Global Cultural Districts Network tallied $8.45 billion spent on 101 new cultural projects completed worldwide in 2016, and $8.54 billion on 135 new projects announced that year. Bold new museums, theaters, and concert halls are being built in cities from Abu Dhabi to Warsaw to Harbin, and cultural projects remain a coveted commission for the world’s leading architects.

At the same time, recent research shows that the expectations and desires of cultural audiences are changing. Audiences are defining culture much more broadly and casually, with less attention to earlier distinctions between high and popular art, or for-profit or not-for-profit activity. New buildings and complexes must increasingly be analyzed using new criteria. Are they what contemporary audiences—and artists–want in spaces for the arts? And the experience of many cities forces other questions. Does investment in cultural buildings and complexes accomplish what its boosters—whether institutional or municipal leaders–claim?