Challenges in the creation of murals: A theoretical framework

ABSTRACT

Murals have become a familiar element in urban landscapes around the world, providing benefits for individuals, communities, and cities. Many murals have been co-opted by city administrations as part of broader municipal policies. Despite the benefits associated with murals, they provoke tensions and contradictions that challenge policymakers, owners, communities, and those involved in their creation. This paper explores and maps the difficulties and challenges associated with placing murals in the public realm, providing a theoretical framework and highlighting their complexity. Additionally, we demonstrate how these challenges may turn into real-life disputes, cause public outrage, and create tensions between stakeholders in a manner which affects cityscape and urban development. Through case-examples from Portland and Philadelphia, we demonstrate how our theoretical framework can be used to better understand these challenges, and to explore how a range of interests might clash in the face of said challenges.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the reviewers and the editors for their insightful and constructive comments, and to Cecille Bernstein for her assistance. Additionally, we would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eynat Mendelson-Shwartz

Eynat Mendelson-Shwartz is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. She is an experienced architect and town planner. She is currently conducting a cross-national comparative study of mural policies.

Nir Mualam

Nir Mualam is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. He is an experienced lawyer and a planner whose current research focuses on urban design, heritage policies and conflicts, planning processes, urban resistance campaigns, and planning institutions.