The Experience City: Planning of Hybrid Cultural Projects

This article takes its point of departure in the pressure of the experience economy on European cities—a pressure which in recent years has found its expression in a number of comprehensive transformations of the physical and architectural environments, and new eventscapes related to fun and cultural experience are emerging. The physical, cultural and democratic consequences of this development are discussed in the article, as well as the problems and the new opportunities in the “experience city”. It focuses on the design of the “Danish experience city” with a special emphasis on hybrid cultural projects and on performative urban spaces. “Hybrid cultural projects” are characterized by a conscious fusion between urban transformation and new knowledge centres, cultural institutions and experience environments. “Performative urban spaces” are characterized by stages for performance, learning and experience. The performative activity can take on the guise of events—something temporary, but still recurring, which influences the shape and identity of the space. The article contains four sections. In the first section, we present three European cases outside Denmark in order to relate to the wider international debate and development. In Section 2, we present the main theoretical concepts and framings that will guide the understanding and the analysis of the experience city. In Section 3, we focus on the design of the “Danish experience city” and present the first research findings. The projects are categorized according to their content, structure and urban localization. In particular, the cases are labelled in relation to their strategic and urban planning importance, their social and cultural content and their architectural representation and the programmes they contain. The article ends in a discussion of the trajectory for future research.