CULTURAL CAPITAL OF EUROPE CULTURAL CAPITAL OF EUROPE Glasgow's involvement in the performing arts and its many museums and art galleries, place the city quite high in the league of European cultural centres. This probably comes as a surprise to many of Glasgow's critics, most of whom come from London as far as I can see. Even more people were surprised in October 1986 when it was announced that Glasgow was to be European City of Culture in 1990. The year turned out to be unprecedented in the eight centuries of the city's history. There were 3,439 public events, performers and artists from 23 countries, 40 major works commissioned in the performing and visual arts, 60 world premieres in theatre, dance and music, 3,979 performances of 656 theatrical productions and 3,122 musical performances, 2,200 of them free, 1091 exhibitions, and 157 sporting events. Events involved schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, hospitals, prisons, homes for the elderly and training centres, theatres, galleries, universities, community centres, warehouses, parks and streets.

My own view of the year is conditioned by the fact that I am an unashamed propagandist, if you accept the dictionary definition of propaganda as the organised dissemination of information. I believe our year of culture was a success because when it ended there were few places of importance in the world that do not know Glasgow was a city of major importance. The European City of Culture concept was introduced in 1985 by Melina Mercouri, Greece's Minister of Culture at the time and one-time actress and singer (Never on a Sunday). Athens was the first city to hold the title, followed by Florence, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and Glasgow. If ever a word has been misused and misinterpreted it is the word culture. Hanns Johst wrote at the beginning of this century, "Wenn ich Kulture hore..entsichere ich meinen Browning!" Whenever I hear the word culture I release the safety catch on my pistol. Culture doesn't mean a ballet performance or an opera or a classical concert. It means all of these things and a lot more. It means the total range of the inherited ideas, beliefs, attitudes, values, and activities of a group of people.

This is what Glasgow's culture year set out to project. Work started on publicising the year four years before the event. By the time 1990 dawned my work was virtually finished and a specially-established press office dealt with the world's news media who flocked to Glasgow to find out what all the fuss was about. My office put out a press release in April 1986 that the city was making a bid for the title of European City of Culture, or Cultural Capital of Europe as we quickly renamed it. Glasgow was competing with Edinburgh, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Cardiff, Bath, Swansea and Cambridge. In October a phone call from the Cabinet Office in London told me that Richard Luce, Britain's Minister for the Arts, would nominate Glasgow for the culture title at a meeting in Brussels on November 13 along with the 11 other Ministers of Culture of the European Economic Community. The award to Glasgow would be automatic as it was Britain's turn and Glasgow would receive unanimous approval. The Cabinet Office also asked me to organise a press conference for October 20 at which Mr Luce would announce the nomination.

The excitement was tense as a large number of journalists, some of whom sent their stories world wide, gathered in the City Chambers to hear the announcement. Mr Luce said it was an important day in Glasgow's history. All the other cities had put forward interesting nominations but Glasgow had put together the best case. That didn't prevent the Government from declining to give the city much help with its plans for 1990. The Office of Arts and Libraries gave the city only £500,000 which amounted to less than one per cent of the total cost. The world's biggest advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi, was later commissioned to help publicise 'culture year.' Not everyone in the Labour group of the city council was thrilled about employing the agency which had done so much for Labour's arch-enemy Margaret Thatcher but Pat Lally, the council leader, was determined that only the 'biggest and best' was good enough to work for Glasgow. Some of their brightest public relations stars were assigned the task of devising a slogan for the year. The lights burned late night after night in their London office until inspiration settled on the furrowed brows.

There's a lot Glasgowing on in 1990 was born. My first inclination was to burst into hysterical laughter. Glaswegians had the greatest difficulty in saying it and it was utterly impossible to translate for the benefit of the rest of the world. The politicians approved the slogan anyway but we also used one we bought for £20,000 from John Struthers, the man who devised the Glasgow's Miles Better slogan. "The Flying G" as we nicknamed it, didn't mean much either but it was useful enough as slogans go because the success of a slogan depends largely on how well and how often it is publicised. People will get used to anything in time. Saatchi's efforts for 'culture year' cost £2.5 million, most of which was spent on newspaper advertising. The year, for which the city council had created a budget of £15 million to subsidise events, provide guarantees against losses by performing groups, and to provide seed money to get projects started, had already been running three months when M.

Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris, formally handed the culture crown, metaphorically speaking, to Glasgow's Lord Provost Susan Baird in the King's Theatre on March 2, 1990, watched by the Queen and diplomats and politicians from all the European community countries and a galaxy of stars from a variety of other firmaments, industry and commerce, the church, the visual and performing arts, law, medicine, and the halls of academe. Because of the number of French speakers in the audience the theatre manager, Billy Differ, anxious to display his linquistic skills, introduced the Queen as La Reine d'Angleterre, the Queen of England. Even the lady herself joined in the laughter. After the ceremony in the Kings's Theatre the Queen went to McLellan Galleries which had been refurbished at a cost of £3.5 million, to see The British Art Show, the work of 42 artists in their 20s and 30s. The exhibition included dustbin lids, metal filing cabinets, giant fur-covered spoons, and what looked like roof guttering, in addition to more conventional manifestations of man's creative genius.

There is no record of what the Queen thought of the exhibition, which was described in its advertising as daring, innovative, and significant. Highlights of 1990 year included shows by the world's great artists, Peter Brook, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dramaten Theatre directed by Ingmar Bergman, Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti, and the Bolshoi Opera Company. Their success depends very much on whether one looks at them from the perspective of an aesthete, an accountant, or a member of the public who has to find the money for tickets. The Sinatra concert, for instance, cost the city £665,000, of which £575,000 was Ol' Blue Eyes' fee. The Bolshoi Opera cost more than £1,000,000 and Luciano's concert cost £800,000 to mount, but were covered by ticket sales. Robert Palmer, our Director of Performing Arts, later wrote an account of what was involved in getting the Bolshoi Opera company to Glasgow: "Communication with the Soviet Union was not easy.

Twentythree telexes were sent to The Bolshoi Opera in the two-month period following a visit to Glasgow in November 1989 by Aleksander Lazarev, the company's musical director. In January 1990 Valery Levental, chief designer of the Bolshoi, Vladimir Taran, technical director, and Sergey Selivanov, came to Glasgow, engulfed themselves in technical drawings of the SECC and talked for hours, counting and discounting possibilities. One evening the Russians came to my office and told me, 'We want to perform in Glasgow. It will be difficult but we think it can be done.' That was the start of many detailed negotiations. Consultants poured over inventive conversion proposals, seating plans and acoustics and the SECC talked about hires and services. Eventually more than 900 people were involved in helping to make possible the Bolshoi's visit to Glasgow.

But it was worth it." A number of events featuring Soviet performing and visual arts were held in Glasgow during 1989 and 1990, including New Beginnings, described by Chris Carrell, director of the Third Eye Centre, as "the largest season of contemporary Soviet arts ever staged in Britain." Journalistic hyperbole was a valuable and much-used tool in those days. The Third Eye centre was reborn later as the Centre for Contemporary Arts and is now directed by the talented Penny Rae. Neil Wallace, depute director of festivals, and I had a monumental row in my office one day when I was writing a press release to announce that Pavarotti would be among the stars of culture year. Neil said I shouldn't emphasise the Pavarotti involvement as the year was not about him but about hundreds of things that were happening. I tried to tell him I had to start the story somewhere and the fact that Pavarotti was coming was news. Not being a journalist Neil had difficulty in understanding what I was talking about and we had a real slanging match. Eventually for the sake of peace I didn't start off my story with Pavarotti but when the story appeared in all the newspapers it started off with the Italian singer.

That was the last time I let anyone interfere with what I was writing. Needless to say Neil and I have been friends ever since. Among the benefits of garden festival year and 1990 is that never again will Glaswegians be reluctant to say where they come from, as was the case in the 1970s. Never again will a writer in one of America's most influential business magazines, Forbes, be able to refer to Glasgow as "Siberia in a kilt." Directly because of culture year Glasgow now has the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the refurbished McLellan Galleries, making it the finest and largest fully air-conditioned exhibition space outside London, the Tramway, a former tramcar depot, which has won many awards for its high quality innovative theatre and visual arts programmes, a second studio within the Centre for Contemporary Arts, a second cinema for the Glasgow Film Theatre, and the Arches exhibition and theatre area under the Central railway station. New festivals were also initiated, The Glasgow International Early Music Festival, Chorus International, the Tryst Festival and a festival of children's theatre to add to Mayfest and Glasgow International Jazz Festival which had been established earlier.

A variety of other theatre, music and arts groups were spawned by culture year and are still going strong. They include Call That Singing (a choir of 500 voices) and Jewish Arts, the brain-child of Louise Naftalin, wife of a Glasgow lawyer, which organises concerts, recitals, talks by well-known writers, art exhibitions, and children's events. Successful exhibitions during the year included The Age of Van Gogh, Treasures of the Holy Land, The British Art Show (despite the dustbin lids) Degas' Images of Women, 2000 Years of Art & Design, Henry Moore Sculptures, Camille Pissarro, and many more. One exhibition attracted about 500,000 visitors, more than all the others combined, and was still considered a disaster. Glasgow's Glasgow in the Arches was described as an exposition based on the theme of Glasgow's history...demonstrating in a dynamic manner the uniqueness and variety of the city. Unfortunately it didn't live up to its lofty aspirations, entry was too highly priced, it was too poorly marketed, and too few people could get in at one time even if they did turn up.

Instead of being self-financing as was intended it cost the city £4.5 million, the most expensive single event of the year. Doug Clelland, the originator of the exhibition, made a spirited defence of the event and understandably laid the blame for its loss at a variety of doors. He also claimed it contained within it 16 mini-exhibitions, that a lot of people liked it, that it demonstrated the vitality and versatility of the city, brought tourists, provided a platform for diverse theatrical performances, gave birth to The Words and the Stones, one of the most comprehensive books on the city, transported, exhibited and safely returned to diverse owners 3,923 artifacts, and much else. All of which came of something as a relief to me as Doug Clelland came to me in 1987 with the idea for the exhibition and later wrote asking me to discuss it with Robert Palmer, then festivals director, which I did, giving it my enthusiastic support. Investment in the arts has benefited the economy of the city by increasing tourism, business, and creating jobs.

More than 6,500 people, 2.8% of the economically active population, are involved in the cultural scene, more than in banking sector. Attendance figures for performances, the growth of cultural industries such as film production, book publishing and design were all given a considerable boost by the 1990 City of Culture initiative. Robert Palmer is invited 70 to 80 times a year to speak at and chair international conferences in places like Paris, Helsinki, Stockholm, Toronto, Athens, Luxemburg, Zimbabwe, Berlin, Moscow, and St Petersburg. All of these cities want to know about the management of festivals, how a city like Glasgow devises urban cultural policy, how the arts relate to urban regeneration, how to manage the arts, and Glasgow's long-term cultural transformation. Foreign journalists constantly ask him about the city's cultural policy. Compared with 1989 there is a 14 per cent increase in attendances at theatre events, concerts, exhibitions, and events; 4.5 million arts attendances a year. More people attend arts events in Glasgow than any other city in Britain except London. Glasgow is featured prominently in publications throughout the world in articles about cultural capitals.

Glaswegians have had to be very adaptable. Their city has changed many times in the eight centuries of its existence, from a little town with only ecclesiastical significance in the Middle Ages to a prosperous and beautiful city in the 17th and 18th centuries, to a rich but overcrowded industrial sprawl in the 19th century, to a modern business and cultural centre today. For a time it was the second city of the British empire, an empire greater than the Romans ever dreamed of. There is no continent which has not benefited from the ingenuity, imagination, enterprise, skill, inventiveness, clarity of thought, and even genius of people born or trained in Glasgow. Its ships sailed every sea, its locomotives pulled the trains on every continent, its fabrics adorned the world's beautiful women, its engines powered the world's industry, and its carpets rolled across the floors of the world's exotic palaces, and a few desert tents. For more than five centuries Glasgow University has turned out graduates who have gone all over the world to distinguish themselves in every field of human endeavour. The university has the oldest engineering school in the world and the largest medical school in Britain and one of the largest in Europe.

People sometimes talk about Glasgow's culture year as if the city had a brief flirtation with culture in 1990 for the first time in its life. Whatever one might think of Glasgow's civic leaders it doesn't alter the fact that generation after generation of them have done what they could to enrich the cultural life of the citizens, even if they haven't always been conscious of it. To ensure their continued existence the Corporation of Glasgow bought the Citizens Theatre in 1955 and the King's Theatre from the London-based Howard and Wyndham Limited in 1967. The Citizens is known throughout Europe for the quality of its productions. The City Halls in Candleriggs were opened in October 1841 as the first concert hall in Glasgow. It was also the venue for important speakers, who have included Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. When St Andrew's Hall was burned down in 1962 the City Hall came into its own as the venue for Scottish National Orchestra concerts. These have now gone to the new concert hall but the City Hall is still used for other concerts and meetings.

Glasgow now has the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, 14 theatres, 28 theatre companies, 150 professional performing arts organisations, almost all of which are heavily subsidised by the council. In 1988 the Queen Mother opened the new £12 million Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 1990 Glasgow City Council established a £3 million investment fund to acquire works by Scottish and international artists. And there are also a large number of privately-owned studios and exhibition places in addition to the council's own galleries. In 1983 the marketing world-wide of the opening of The Burrell Collection was the biggest and most successful operation ever carried out in Scotland on behalf of an exhibition or museum. In 1981 The Realist Tradition exhibition at the Museum & Art Gallery at Kelvingrove achieved the second highest attendance, 118,900, since the museum was opened 81 years earlier.

In 1979 the Exhibition of Jewish Art at Kelvingrove and the Jewish Way of Life exhibition in Hillhead Library achieved record attendances despite what might have been considered a limited, sectarian appeal. Glasgow School of Art, Scotland's premier art school, has an international academic and artistic reputation in architecture, design and fine art and in its 150 years has influenced major movements in European art, has produced a high number of Scotland's great painters and has had a major influence in Scottish design. A considerable number of professional artists live, work and exhibit regularly in the city, including many who have achieved international reputations; Campbell, Conroy, Currie, Howson, Watt and Wiszniewski. The last decade has seen the development of considerable artistic activity within the minority ethnic communities in Glasgow who have produced exhibitions and specific projects in collaboration with most of the leading arts organisations. Glasgow's interest in the visual arts go back to 1670 when the town council bought from London portraits of Charles 1 and Charles 11 for the townes use. At the council house they joined portraits of James and James V1, laying the foundation for city's art galleries.

Many of the men who amassed considerable fortunes when the city was a great industrial and maritime metropolis collected paintings as a hobby and later they or their families gave the collections to the city. The Hunterian collection left to the University of Glasgow by William Hunter in 1783 has the distinction of sharing with the Freer Gallery in Washington the world's finest collection of paintings by James McNeil Whistler. In 1865 the town council acquired from the estate of Archibald McLellan, a coach builder, a magnificent collection of paintings and a building which is still known as McLellan Galleries. In 1874 the city was given the Dutch and British art collections of William Euing, an insurance broker. Three years later John Graham-Gilbert's collection came from his wife. This collection included many paintings by Graham-Gilbert himself, a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. The collection included two of Glasgow's prized possessions, Rembrandt's Man in Armour and Ruben's Nature Adorned by the Graces. All of which means it shouldn't really have surprised anyone that Glasgow became Cultural Capital of Europe in 1990.

Most Glaswegians benefited from the city's year of culture even if they don't know it; and as I have said, it certainly did a lot for the city's image, which was my major concern. History – UNeECC History European Capital of Culture The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one year during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural life and cultural development. A number of European cities have used the City of Culture year to transform completely their cultural base and, in doing so, the way in which they are viewed internationally. History Conceived as a means of bringing citizens of European Union (or EC, as then was) closer together, the European City of Culture was launched on June 13, 1985 by the Council of Ministers on the initiative of the Greek Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri. Since then, the initiative has been more and more successful amongst European citizens and has had a growing cultural and socio-economic impact on the numerous visitors it has attracted.

The European Cities of Culture were designated on an intergovernmental basis until 2004; the Member States unanimously selected the cities most likely to welcome the event and the European Commission granted a subsidy to the selected city each year. As of 2005, the EU’s institutions will take part in the selection procedure of the cities that will host the event.In 1990, the Ministers of Culture launched the “European Cultural Month”. This event is similar to the European City of Culture but goes on for a shorter period and is addressed to Central and Eastern European countries in particular. The European Commission grants a subsidy for the European Cultural Month each year.As early as 1991, the organisers of the different European Cities of Culture created the Network of European Cultural Capitals and Months (ECCM – info: rmaslias<at>europarl.eu.int) — enabling the exchange and dissemination of information, also to the organisers of future events. This network also carried out in 1994 a study on the impact of the European City of Culture since its creation. ECCM is a non profit organisation based in Luxembourg and acting in close collaboration to the European Institutions.

Since 2006 it will present in every Cultural Capital and in former ones a travelling exhibition “A Journey to the World: Cultural Capitals”. The exhibition is inaugurated for the first time in Patras, Greece on the 27th of March 2006. Individual cities have looked to evaluate their own experience in different ways; it is not easy to track long term evaluations of city experiences in every case. Charles Landry of the UK-based cultural consultancy Comedia has recently published an interesting evaluation of the Helsinki Year of Culture in 2000. From 2002-2005, Beatriz Garcia led a research project investigating the long term legacy of Glasgow 1990, based at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow. In 1999, the European City of Culture was renamed the European Capital of Culture, and it is now financed through the Culture 2000 programme. Cork City, in Ireland, was the first city in Europe to hold the prestigious Capital of Culture title.

The European Parliament and Council Decision of May 25, 1999 integrates this event into the Community framework and introduces a new selection procedure for the Capitals for the 2005–2019 period. This was done to avoid overly fierce competition to win the accolade; each EU member nation will be given the opportunity to “host” the capital in turn. Starting in 2005, two cities will now share this status each year. In 2004, the European Commission asked Robert Palmer, director of Palmer-Rae Associates, to evaluate the programme of European Capitals of Culture 1994-2004, following an earlier evaluation study examining European Capitals of Culture 1985-1993. The latest study comprehensively deals with cultural, economic, visitor, social and European perspectives of the European Capital of Culture action. It comprises two volumes: one of summary findings, analyses and conclusions; a second of individual case studies. Both volumes can be freely downloaded. Based on Palmer’s findings, the European Commission has made recommendations for changing the procedures for selecting and monitoring European Capitals of Culture and for placing increased emphasis on the cultural and European components of the action.

It is likely that the Parliament will agree to such changes, and continue the action of European capitals of Culture until at least 2019, with the designation of two European Capitals of Culture each year. Details are provided on the website of the European Commission Education and Culture: Culture in European Union On 11 March 2006, the Turkish city of Istanbul, the Hungarian city of Pécs and the German city of Essen (representing the Ruhrgebiet region) were selected as European Capitals of Culture for 2010 by the EU council. Only European cities within member states of the EU are eligible — other European cities are not. However, the EU council can designate one city from a non-EU country for a given year, if that city’s designation is approved unanimously in the council.

European Cities/Capitals of Culture Past European Capitals of Culture 1985: Athens (Greece) 1988: West Berlin (West Germany) 1989: Paris (France) 1998: Stockholm (Sweden) 1999: Weimar (Germany) 2000: Reykjavík (Iceland), Bergen (Norway), Helsinki (Finland), Brussels (Belgium), Prague (Czech Republic), Krakow (Poland), Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain), Avignon (France), Bologna (Italy) 2001: Rotterdam (Netherlands), Porto (Portugal) 2002: Bruges (Belgium), Salamanca (Spain) 2003: Graz (Austria) 2004: Genoa (Italy), Lille (France) 2005: Cork (Ireland) 2007: Luxembourg (Luxembourg) — Sibiu (Romania) 2008: Liverpool (United Kingdom) — Stavanger (Norway) 2009: Linz (Austria) — Vilnius (

Lithuania) 2010: Essen (Germany) — Pécs (Hungary) — Istanbul (Turkey) 2011: Turku (Finland) — Tallinn (Estonia) 2012: Guimarães (Portugal) — Maribor (Slovenia) 2013: Marseille (France) — Kosice (Slovakia) 2014: Umea (Sweden) — Riga (Latvia) 2015: Mons (Belgium) — Plzen (Czech Republic ) Current European Capital of Culture 2016: Donostia – San Sebastián (Spain) — Wroclaw (Poland) Future European Capitals of Culture 2017: Aarhus (Denmark) — Paphos (Cyprus) 2018: Netherlands — Valetta (Malta) In Liverpool's footsteps: now every city can aim to be Britain's capital of culture | Culture | The Guardian In Liverpool's footsteps: now every city can aim to be Britain's capital of culture • Competition for title to be staged every four years • Arts to get bigger role in urban regeneration La

 Princesse, the 50ft-high giant metal spider made by theatrical engineers La Machine, crawls through the streets of Liverpool as part of capital of culture celebrations last September.

Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA Tuesday 6 January 2009 19.01 EST First published on Tuesday 6 January 2009 19.01 EST Close This article is 8 years old Cities will compete every four years for the title of British capital of culture as the government moves to give the arts a bigger stage in urban regeneration, it will be announced today. The winner would not only host a year-long arts programme, but also events normally confined to London such as the Turner prize, the Brit music awards, film awards, such as the Baftas, architecture awards, or the BBC sports personality of the year. The idea has been developed by Phil Redmond, Liverpool capital of culture chairman, in conjunction with Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, and comes in the wake of the extraordinary success of Liverpool as European capital of culture - the city's celebrations end this Saturday, having generated £176m in tourism. Gordon Brown will make the role of culture in regenerating cities a major theme of the cabinet's visit to Liverpool tomorrow.

Burnham, who was also brought up in Liverpool, has asked Redmond to chair a group to develop the idea in time for the first competition to be held in 2011, ahead of the cultural Olympiad, which ties in with London 2012. The BBC has already agreed to cover the event. In a speech in Liverpool tonight Burnham will argue that such a competition would help challenge "the casual perception that nothing much of cultural value takes place outside London". He told the Guardian: "In Liverpool, something important and significant has happened that has implications for cultural policy in Britain, but more broadly for regeneration, education, skills and the new economy." He said he wanted to defeat "those voices [that] can be heard saying that a focus on culture and creativity is a luxury or a distraction at in times like these". He said a four-yearly British competition could have the same benefits as a European competition that Britain can necessarily only win once every 20 years or so.

He added: "By receiving national recognition as a city of culture, any city of the UK could be given an opportunity to bring out the creative skills, talent and enthusiasm of its people - showcase it on a national stage - and change perceptions of it." Redmond said he saw the prize being handed out once every two or four years. Burnham said that a recession was just the wrong moment to cut back on the arts and pointed to Franklin D Roosevelt, who insisted on creating a federal art project as part of the New Deal that saw America through the great depression. He said that the coming digital revolution, spread by the development of high- speed broadband, would diminish the importance of place in the cultural economy, meaning London need no longer monopolise cultural activity. Burnham said: "This past year it is centres of financial power that have been shaken. But centres of cultural and creative power are shifting too, as the decline of old media quickens and digital communications diminish the importance of place." He also argued that developments in Liverpool showed the cultural dominance of London at the expense of other cities can be ended. "Capital cities have been where all the gatekeepers to these glamorous worlds lives - commissioners, producers and editors.

Capital cities are where only truly world-class cultural events take place. But this is changing. Just as centres of power in finance are shifting, so are centres of culture and creativity in an age where anyone can broadcast their music, poetry, film or comedy to the world." He remained unrepentant in his view that culture was still viewed through too-metropolitan lenses and, as Bilbao and Liverpool have shown, arts and showpiece events can act as a magnet for investment. Liverpool has claimed it received 3.5 million first-time visitors last year, generating £176m from tourism alone. Not enough was done to capture the benefits of Glasgow's year as European capital of culture in 1990 and he said he was determined that the same mistake is not made with Liverpool's legacy. He said Liverpool's experience as capital of culture marked almost its turning point so that people could be more optimistic about the future and break with some of its past. "Culture can also change perceptions of a city, a region, a country by bringing an association with aspiration and social mobility. That is difficult to achieve by other means." Liverpool 08 had been a catalyst for successful physical regeneration.

"Regeneration led by culture and cultural projects can be the most successful and durable, stimulating a new creative economy. "But more valuable has been its success in regenerating belief, hope and human spirit. It has changed outside perceptions of Liverpool and Liverpool's perceptions of itself." EU Capitals of Culture | Dr Beatriz García EU Capitals of Culture ‘follow’ EU Capitals of Culture I have researched the European Capital of Culture initiative since 2002. My research has focused on studying the regeneration potential and long-term cultural legacies of hosting the event, as distinct from other economic, physical and social impacts. With this in mind, I have developed a set of cultural indicators and longitudinal qualitative methodologies that complement established approaches to economic and physical impact analysis. By linking on this blog categories for European Capital of Culture, cultural policy, and relevant city case studies (Glasgow 1990, Liverpool 2008 ) you will access a selection of relevant publication abstracts, presentations and project summaries. Find below an overview of the main European Capital of Culture related projects I have conducted and completed to date.

Director: European Capitals of Culture: Success Strategies and Long-Term Effects (2013) This study, funded by the European Parliament, offers a comprehensive assessment of the long-term effects of hosting the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Programme since its inception in 1985, and discusses the organisational and policy implications of these findings. Director: Impacts 08 – The Liverpool Model (2005-2010). Longitudinal research programme into the long term cultural, social, economic and environmental impacts of Liverpool’s becoming 2008 European Capital of Culture. The programme has been commissioned by the Liverpool City Council and is jointly developed by the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University. [ Programme website] Director : European Capitals of Culture Policy Group (2009-2010). International network of researchers and programmers of the European Capital of Culture initiative focused on finding a common framework for programme assessment and delivery. This collaboration has been funded by the European Commission and led to a series of workshops, led by Liverpool via the Impacts 08 team, with the collaboration of teams from Stavanger, Marseille, Turku, the Rhur and Kosice amongst others.

[ Network blog ] Principal Investigator (with Dr Steven Miles and Dr Alan Southern) Cultural Sustainability? Liverpool in 2008 – AHRC and ESRC Impact Fellowship to study the cultural policy implications of hosting the 2008 European Capital of Culture in Liverpool. Understanding the Long-term Legacies of Glasgow 1990, European City of Culture (January 2002- December 2005) Research funded by the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (University of Glasgow). This four-year research programme focused on an assessment of the ten year on cultural impacts and legacies of hosting this title. The focus was the establishment of innovative methodologies for narrative analysis to capture Glasgow’s image renaissance post 1990.

[intlink id=”21″][Research summary][/intlink] 1 comment for “EU Capitals of Culture” Glasgow 1990 European City of Culture | Dr Beatriz García Glasgow 1990 European City of Culture November 21, 2002 Cities and Culture Project: Understanding the Long-term Legacies of Glasgow 1990, European City of Culture From January 2002 to December 2005, Dr Beatriz Garcia was the principal investigator of a research project on Cities and Culture, using Glasgow 1990 European City of Culture as a case study. The research was conducted at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research , University of Glasgow, with support from Matthew Reason (research assistant), Nicola Sneddon (CCPR Information and Resources Administrator), Adrienne Scullion (CCPR Academic Director) and Christine Hamilton (CCPR Director). The main premise for the Cities and Culture project was a recognition of the predominance of the city as a cultural centre and the trend (emerging throughout the 1990s and fully established by 2004) to place the arts and culture at the heart of urban development.

In particular, the project was set to explore the nature and effects of emerging bridges between areas such as urban regeneration, place marketing, city tourism and cultural policy. The academic dedication to exploring these bridges was not exclusive to the CCPR. However, up to 2002, much of the existing research focused on studying their economic dimensions and short-term effects, while overlooking the analysis of potential long-term cultural and social legacies. The Cities and Culture project was designed precisely to address this caveat: a key focus of the research was the sustainability of cultural investment in cities. The project was designed to co-ordinate a variety of academic disciplines and test new research methodologies. As such, it incorporated approaches to research drawn from social sciences and the humanities, in particular, urban, leisure, cultural and communication studies, politics and arts history. More information about this project and its outcomes will be available soon. In the meantime, you can access a more detailed Research Description (2004) below, or can search for relevant blog entries within this site (eg. ‘Glasgow’, European Capital of Culture etc).

Glasgow's cultural sector 'booming' - BBC News BBC News Close share panel Image caption The report said there were about nine live performances a day in the city Glasgow's cultural sector has boomed since 1990, when the city was named European Capital of Culture, a new report has claimed. The study, commissioned by Glasgow City Council, found that about 30,000 people now worked in the city's cultural and creative industries. The authors said the figure represented one of the largest concentrations of the creative economy outside London. Glasgow was the first UK city to be named culture capital. The title is awarded by the European Union annually to promote common history and values. 'Cultural metropolis' Two decades after his first report into the impact of 1990, analyst John Myerscough found the number of live performances - whether music, theatre or dance - had risen by 82% since 1992. The figure equates to an average of nine live performances every day.

Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson said: "Glasgow is Scotland's cultural metropolis, a creative powerhouse which boosts not only the city's standing both at home and abroad, but is a key provider of jobs across the city. "Since long before 1990, the city prioritised our heritage, art and culture as a way of transforming our fortunes. This landmark report proves that our investment has worked. "We've long said that Glasgow is the driving force in Scottish culture and this report proves there is no greater cultural destination outside London." Glasgow City Council commissioned the report along with Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland. The authority said it had plans to further expand the sector with various projects, including the new £74m Riverside Museum.

Question: Which British city was European Capital of Culture in 1990?
Answer: Glasgow