Cities and Flagships

Klaus R. Kunzmann Potsdam, Professor emeritus. Technical University Dortmund/GermanyKlaus R. Kunzmann Potsdam, Professor emeritus, TU Dortmund/Germany

Cities and Flagships Outline

•  Why flagships? What are urban flagships? Flagship policies •  Flagships: A story-telling cruise around the world

> History, Europe, Germany, and Asia •  Cities without flagships •  Negative Implications and positive effects

Cities and Flagships

Why flagships? Why flagship policies? •  In times of globalization, of growing global interdependency and global

communication networks, cities compete globally, not just regionally •  Cities compete for inward investment, for qualified labour, for tourists, and for

international media coverage, they apply for Olympics and football world championships, they host film festivals and conventions as well as political, events

•  In order to demonstrate urban excellence, to underline their attractiveness and to profile their city image and identity, they build flagship projects.


Flagships?

•  City managers know that images of flagships in the media help to gain international reputation. whether in international newspapers or in trendy airline and consumer magazines

•  Cities, urged by vested interests of local communities and investors, feel obliged to build new museums or opera houses designed by star architects; they built impressive sport arenas or develop eye-catching waterfront developments. This is done at prominent city locations, hoping that the flagships trigger off new development on derelict brown field sites, and add value to the local city stage

•  Architects and planners like it to demonstrate their genius and to trigger off urban transitions in port areas and rundown urban brownfields.


Parachuting flagship architects . . . conquering the city and promoting global identity


Flagships Yesterday

temples, light towers, arenas, church towers, defense and fire towers, palaces, gardens,

Today

museums, opera houses & music halls, skyscrapers, shopping centres, apartment towers, sports arenas, universities or even infrastructure buildings

To demonstrate local and global power, to show wealth, to attract investors and

buyers and highly qualified labour, to impress the media to promote local economies, to please citizens, to write chapters for the history books

Pittsburgh: Cathedral of Learning


Controversies As a rule, flagship projects are facing opposition from the beginning, as they are implemented with enormous public investments and often against public interest,

In the end, however, experience shows, ciies benefit from the new city symbol and economic follow-up investments.

The fact that other, more socially minded urban development projects are sacrified to the implementation of a controversial flagship project is soon forgotten.

The flagship is praised as a welcomed addition to the cityscape.

Singapore


Flagships A cruise around the world: A selection

Alexandria, Athens ,Rome, Bologna Versailles,

Sydney Paris Bilbao Malmö, Oslo Luxemburg Vienna Hamburg Berlin Dresden Potsdam Essen Dortmund Oberhausen Duisburg Tokyo, Nanjing, Beijing------------ Millau .---------------------------and New York

…and New York

Alexandria

Athens 550 A.D.

Rom

80 A.D.

Bologna 13th Cnetury

Versailles 17th century

Paris World exhibition 1900

Sydney

Wroclaw

Paris Fallxhirme

Paris les grands projets

Bilbao

Rotterdam

1

Malmö Västra Hamnen

n  Sustainable mixed land use developmentn  Expo Bo12001

n  City of knowledgen  Calatrava flagship

Malmö Sweden UK Klaus R. Kunzmann

Oslo

Vienna

5

Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU) or Vienna University of Economics and Business is the largest University focusing on business and economics in Europe and, in terms of student body, one of the largest universities in Austria. It has been ranked as one of the best business schools in Europe. WU Wien has more than 25,000 students and over 1500 researchers and academic staff.

The new WU campus represents an important step in the university’s develop-ment, and a further milestone toward reaching its goal of further improving its top position among European business schools. The central building, the Library & Learning Center is surrounded by five buildings designe by six internationally renowned architects from Spain, Japan and the UK (Zada Hadid).

Austria

11

Luxembourg Belval

any Hafencity

19th century port and logistic, A new city centre extension 12.000 inhabitants, 40.000 jobs, Creative industries, Cultural Quarter, Hafencity University Spectacular Philharmonic Hall

Hamburg

Hamburg

11

Germany

. Berlin Creative City

Berlin: Museumsinsel 2025

. Berlin: Humboldtforum

Dresden Frauenkirche

Potsdam

Essen Zeche Zollverein

Zeche Zollverein Essen

27

Dortmund

1

A Krupp-Thyssen steelworks sold to a Chinese investor and shipped to China.

On the site a new lake has been developed a technology park a new middle-income residential area.

26

Dortmund Germany

Dortmund Das U

Oberhausen

34

Duisburg

Tokyo

Nanjing

Beijing

BeijingBeijing The place

MillauGötschtalbrücke Vogtland

Los Angeles Downtown


Cities without flagships Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt, Naples, Helsinki and many others


Negative implications from an urban development perspective Flagship projects (as a rule) tend to •  Absorb much time, manpower and public funds •  Burden local budgets beyond reasonable limits

•  Increase inner-urban social and economic disparities •  Raise property prices and rents in the neighbourhood •  Lead to declining budgets for local cultural centres and activities

•  Bypass democratic planning and decision-making processes •  Promote global against local identity


Positive impacts of flagship projects from an urban development perspective Flagship projects (as a rule) tend to •  Raise the image of a city, brand a place •  Cause media to cover the city •  Bring and position the city on the global map •  Bring a touch of global feeling •  Attract tourists •  Create stages for tourism and events •  Add public spaces to inner cities •  Profile the city skyline •  Trigger-off secondary urban improvements •  Raise land and property values •  Promote inner city renaissance •  Motivate engineers to innovative design •  Give symbolic hope to citizens “…. Nothing is more successful than success”

New York 9/11

Science

Cities and Flagships