The Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona, 2004
(Forum Barcelona 2004)
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The Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona, 2004 (Forum Barcelona 2004) |
The CIUTAT project will evaluate the impacts of the Universal Forum of Cultures 2004 event (Forum Barcelona 2004) on the image of the Catalan capital city Barcelona. This UNESCO-supported major international event will run from May 9th until September 2004 and proposes to be similar in spirit and scale to the Olympic Games and International Expositions, but based on world cultures. According to the Forum 2004 organisers;
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"The Forum is a new and creative space for reflection and experimentation in relation to the main cultural and social conflicts that humanity is faced with at the outset of the 21st century. The Forum is a festive journey designed to bring the three main themes to life: cultural diversity, sustainable development and conditions for peace. For 141 days, this will be the place where visitors experience cultures and entertainment from around the world through large- and small-scale exhibitions, workshops, markets, performances, games and more”. The main Forum 2004 events will take place in an iconic new development located in a 50-hectare site in situated between Barcelona's Poble Nou district and neighbouring Sant Adrià de Besòs; near the mouth of the Besòs River and at the end of the Avinguda Diagonal. As well as the Forum site, the event will include Dialogues and events in the City of Barcelona: |
Forum 2004 Main Building |
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The Forum site |
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The Dialogues: “This gathering, which consists of numerous conferences and congresses, is geared toward reflection. Over 1,500 speakers will participate in an international forum to try to find solutions to the most poignant issues that trouble our world”. |
The Forum in the City: “Barcelona will become a stage for Forum-related exhibitions, performances, street events, etc. The city’s museums, foundations and institutions will be involved in the Forum, from the largest public facilities to the smallest museums, to host specific conferences, festivals and contemporary artistic expressions”. |
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The Forum 2004 area is relatively close to the Olympic village constructed for the 1992 Games and as a result of industrial decline, economic crisis and consequent severe urban problems, has been the target of extensive regeneration plans. In addition to the Forum 2004, these include schemes such as 22@bcn (major IT, commercial and leisure-based regeneration), The Park (a semi-private residential zone) and Diagonal Mar (residential and retail-based redevelopment), all of which were conceived of under a much wider ‘vision’ for the area that was devised as early as the 1850s (for example, Ildefons Cerdà’s plans for the extension of Barcelona) and which form the last phase of several earlier re-creation schemes for the Sant Adrià zone.
In addition, Sant Adrià de Besòs was one of the 70 beneficiary cities of the EU URBAN II initiative which characterised the area as suffering an economic and social crisis caused by high levels of long-term unemployment, low levels of economic activity, highs level of poverty and exclusion, a large number of immigrant populations, ethnic minorities or refugees, inadequate levels of education and skills, high level of crime and delinquency, skewed demographic changes and a particularly run-down environment. The actual site is adjacent to two multicultural, vibrant communities - La Mina and La Catalana; both characterised by high levels of unemployment, a lack of public services and inadequate housing provision.
The Forum Barcelona 2004 organisers emphasise that with the new regeneration resulting from the event and an improved infrastructure, Barcelona will have gained a new residential, cultural and economic district when the 2004 event is over, much in the same manner as was argued for the Port Olímpic area of the city prior to the 1992 Olympic games.
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The name of the event was recently changed from the Universal Forum of Cultures 2004 to Forum Barcelona; a move which has been linked to a shift in priorities for the event and has been much debated among the event's critics (see for example FOTUT 2004). The criticism has been collectively referred to as the 'anti-Forum' movement; a label which some (including Fotut 2004) reject but maintain that they feel that the event is not all it sets out to be and strive to offer alternative activities. |
| Fotut 2004's logo |
Fotut's 'BCNopoly' parody |
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Along similar lines, many NGOs, associations and intellectuals of the city have actually refused to participate in the Forum. The main critiques stem from both the relatively top-down nature of the event (raising questions of the accessibility of the event for local people and its appropriateness as an urban redevelopment model) and the high level of accompanying private sector development adjacent to the site. Other controversial aspects include the activities of various of the event's sponsors which have been observed to contradict the principles of the event. In this respect, Barcelona-based website Indymedia.org recently referred to the Forum 2004 as “armed globalisation painting itself with the colours of rainbow”. |
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Protest graphic "I won't participate in the Forum!!" (background text: "Don't be an idiot") |
Parodying the rhetoric employed by the Forums’ organisers in describing the event (see above), anthropologist Manuel Delgado (University of Barcelona) notes that:
“…the event is going to be a grand festival of 'cultures' as a theme for political demagogy and media trivilisation. Amusements in which cultural multiplicity will become reduced to pure parody, destined for mass consumption and the institutional feel-good factor. A circus where human diversity will be exhibited in a magnificent and lovely show of light and colour” (Manuel Delgado, The Great Circus of Cultures).
Whatever your stance though, the event’s aims are certainly ambitious; “The project's contribution to the urban transformation, image, and projection of the city is well known. But the Forum should also be a platform for the international projection of Catalonia, a showcase of its political, cultural and linguistic reality, and an instrument truly working for civility and social cohesion” (Barcelona 2004 website, Feb. 2003).
However, how it is known that Barcelona 2004 will achieve these goals in advance of the event having taken place remains unclear. Therefore, an evaluation of the likelihood of this projected image of Barcelona and its successful Forum 204 event coming to fruition forms the core of the CIUTAT project and these policy assumptions that have been built into the aims of the event will be analysed.
Forum 2004 links
