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Abstract
The importance of culture in defining new models of local development has been increasingly emphasized. However, less attention has been paid to the influence of local development models on local cultural policy. This article will focus on analysing two cities that have used culture as a central element in their economic and urban development. In both cases, they have followed different strategies but the two have finally finished generating two “white elephants”: the Universal Forum of Cultures in the case of Barcelona and the City of Arts and Sciences in the case of Valencia. From a comparison of the two cases, the paper analyses the causes of this urban phenomenon, which combines cultural legitimation, wasteful investments, financial and social unsustainability and, last but not least, corruption. These four characteristics of cultural white elephants express the depletion of a neoliberal city model based on real estate speculation and tourism, which de facto relegates culture – in spite of discourses about social cohesion and sustainability – as an instrument of urban branding and elite socio-economic domination.
Notes
1 The article is based on the results of two research projects. In the case of Barcelona, 24 semi-directed interviews were carried out in the framework of the research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness (Project “System of cultural policy in Spain”, Ref. CSO2008-05910/SOCI) (anonymous reference) developed between 2012 and 2014. For this research, urban and cultural policy-makers (of the government and opposition) and senior members of the government, its agencies of the different public administrations involved in cultural management and specifically of the organization of Barcelona Forum de les Cultures 2014 (Government of Catalonia, Barcelona City Council and Central Government) were interviewed. In the case of Valencia, the article is based on the results of a comparative research on cultural policies in the regional governments of Spain funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness (Project neighborhoods, Museums and art: public art, artists, institutions – HAR2012-38899-C02-01) developed between 2008 and 2011. The project included 42 semi-directed interviews with policy-makers and cultural managers of the Government of Valencian Country, Valencia City Council and managers of the cultural local sector. The interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed and incorporated into the analysis exposed in this paper.
2 While the electric corporation Endesa funded with 15.1 million euros the Forum of Culture that should promote a culture of sustainability, its subsidiary corporation in Chile promoted the construction of five hydroelectric plants in the Chilean Patagonia, which has alleged the flooding of vast areas of outstanding natural beauty and the displacement of entire villages of the Mapuche people, the indigenous population of Chile (E. González, Citation2006).
3 Some of the sponsoring companies received economic compensations: Endesa, the electric corporation, received the concession to operate the combined cycle plant built under the project of the Forum and Telefonica, the communications corporation, received the consideration of the main supplier of the Forum. Finally, another major sponsor, Toyota, received in exchange for their contribution, a commitment of the City Council to organize a promotional event related to the Toyota F1 team in Barcelona. Therefore, as the Catalan Audit Office criticizes, these sponsoring practices with economic compensations, although they may be legal are close to misappropriation of public funds and corruption (SCC, Citation2014).
4 On the 10 anniversary of the opening ceremony, the Spanish press was unanimous in emphasizing a negative balance of the event and the willingness of local government to "hide" the event without making a critical review of the failure, its causes and lessons on the city model and cultural policy. See for example: ABC (2014), “Barcelona hides the tenth anniversary of the Forum”, 22 April 2014 or La Vanguardia (2014), “The Forum ten years later”, 5 April 2014. Only, the Sindicatura de Comptes (Public Audit Office for Catalonia) at the request of the Parliament of Catalonia has made an effort to critically review their financial management aspects of the event (SCC, Citation2014).
5 The Fallas is a popular festival, which dates back to the eighteenth century, which is organized from wide associative network composed of 382 entities. Over 100,000 people are directly involved in organizing the festival, which consists of the erection of nearly 800 artistic and sculptural installations in the streets and squares of the city. To this we must add hundreds of parades with music bands, fireworks and various events that attract nearly two million tourists to Valencia (Hernández i Martí, Citation1996). Also, Fallas are currently waiting to be declared Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
6 Furthermore, mismanagement, waste of public money and corruption have also characterized one of the flagship projects of the City of Arts and Sciences: the Palau de les Arts, Valencia's opera. Opened in 2006 with an investment cost of 32 million euros, the spectacular building designed by Santiago Calatrava has become impossible to maintain and manage by the Valencian Government revealing itself as an authentic white elephant: in 2014, as an effect of financial cuts to the Palau de les Arts the famous director of the orchestra Zubin Mehta resigned and publicly criticized the situation of cultural institution as a collapse (Verdú, Citation2015). Finally, in the beginning of 2015, its CEO Helga Schmidt wasarrested and prosecuted for mismanagement and irregular appropriation of commissions in fundraising, which has come to completely sink the image of Palau de les Arts as a prestigious cultural institution at local and international levels (Nieto, Citation2015).