Cultural events and heritage policy for the Milan Expo 2015: experimental intersections between mega-event and city

ABSTRACT

The article observes the case of the Expo 2015 by focusing on side cultural events and heritage. By critically drawing on mega-event and smaller event literature, it is argued that new experiments beyond the mega-event itself affected Milan’s transformation and repositioning. In particular, the contribution provides new evidence about the connection between the uncertain planning process for the Universal Exhibition 2015 and the enhancement of historic places in both the host city and region. Furthermore, it discusses Milan’s urban and regional development trends and agendas turning toward leisure tourism and festivalization in this period.

KEYWORDS:

• Mega-events
• smaller events
• cultural heritage
• urban transformation
• urban repositioning
• touristification

Acknowledgments

This article is dedicated to the memory of Corinna Morandi (Politecnico di Milano, DAStU), with whom I shared my research interests and activities on the relationships between mega-events, cities and planning since the beginning of my career. I would like to thank Davide Ponzini (Politecnico di Milano, DAStU) for fruitful cooperation as part of the ‘HOMEE’ research project. I would also like to thank all the officers and managers of the Milan Municipality, the Milan Superintendency and the WePlan private consultant company for providing precious data, information and reflections for the implementation of the research project. I am grateful to two anonymous referees for their comments to the earlier versions of this article.

Declaration of interest statement

To add in final version.

Additional information

Funding

Sections of this paper are based on and supported by the research conducted within the JPI Cultural Heritage research project ‘HOMEE – Heritage Opportunities/threats within Mega-Events in Europe’, with a grant issued by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.