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Artistic Events as Planning Practice: Hybridisation, Expectations, and Pitfalls in Three Swiss Case Studies

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Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism

Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

Abstract

Festivals and artistic events in urban spaces have become a common feature in urban development plans as a means of public relations or valorisation. However, more recently, temporary art installations and performances are favoured by public administrations to publicise urban public policies. Artistic events lie at the intersection of two worlds—art and urban planning—characterised by different goals, methods and professional ethos. This chapter considers artistic events as a tool for urban planners and how they affect professional practices. It reviews recent case studies in Geneva where temporary art projects were directly commissioned by urban planning administrations to defuse or avoid potential conflicts over urban development projects. In a tense context where most state-led urban development plans are blocked by political juridical procedures, artistic events are seen as a means of mediation—to get in touch and engage in discussion with the public. Artistic experimentations are often perceived by urban planners as a welcome renewal of their methods and generally receive positive feedback in the profession. However, based on qualitative data from Switzerland, we show that the hybridisation between artists and urban planners is also the source of misunderstandings that stem from differences in professional ethos and temporalities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The notion of “urban project” is based on that of an “industrial project” and borrows, in its organisation, from project management (Bourdin 2001). The turn of the century gave rise to an important literature on the urban project and on the impact of this new modus operandi on urban planning practice (Chalas 2004; Hayot and Sauvage 2000; Toussaint and Zimmermann 1998).

  2. 2.

    This concept is based on Boltanski and Chiapello’s New Spirit of Capitalism (2005 [1999]).

  3. 3.

    On this subject, see Devisme (2005) and Ouvrard (2016) for a precise and ethnographic description of the mechanisms for incorporating this “new spirit” into professional circles.

  4. 4.

    All quotations from interviews or archives are translated from French by the author.

  5. 5.

    Where competitions have been organised, some contracts have been awarded by invitation-to-tender or by mutual agreement. In the second case, the contracts with the artists were all given conferred by mutual agreement.

  6. 6.

    This is evidenced by several art competitions in the public space recently launched in Geneva. Reflection on the context has been one of the conditions for the emergence of site-specific art (Deutsche 1988).

  7. 7.

    With the exception of the second case, where service providers were recruited exclusively from the artistic community, many proposals were put forward by mixed teams of artists and architects/landscape designers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Governance and Territorial Development, University of Geneva, 66, Boulevard Carl Vogt, Geneva, Switzerland

    Thierry Maeder

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  1. Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, London, UK

    Lauren Andres

  2. Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Amy Y. Zhang

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Maeder, T. (2020). Artistic Events as Planning Practice: Hybridisation, Expectations, and Pitfalls in Three Swiss Case Studies. In: Andres, L., Zhang, A.Y. (eds) Transforming Cities Through Temporary Urbanism. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61753-0_4

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