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Abstract
Since the 1980s, investment in exhibition center infrastructure in Western Europe has followed a divergent pattern. On one hand, investment in the extension and renewal of historical inner-city facilities, dominant in earlier decades, continued while on the other hand many new venues were created in the periphery of European metropolises, thereby breaking with the earlier pattern. This paper tries to explain these contradictory developments by developing its own theoretical model based on path dependency theories. This model is used to analyze recent spatial strategies of two centrally located facilities in Frankfurt and Amsterdam and two recently constructed peripheral complexes in Munich and Milan. It is concluded that differences can only be accounted for through historically developed and locally specific opportunities and limitations that manifest themselves in the dimensions of physical form, function, spatial embeddedness and institutional setting.
Additional information
Rick Vermeulen is post-doc researcher and lecturer at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Sciences Research of the University of Amsterdam where he recently completed his doctoral dissertation on large scale exhibition centers in Western Europe. Concurrently, he works at the Physical Planning Department of the municipality of Amsterdam as a planner on the long-term development of the city.
Willem Salet is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Urban Studies, University of Amsterdam. He is specialized in metropolitan governance and spatial planning, and takes an institutional approach in planning studies. Amongst his (co-edited) books are Framing Strategic Urban Projects, Metropolitan Governance and Spatial Planning, Amsterdam Human Capital. He was the scientific director of the Amsterdam research institute of the Metropolitan Environment (AME). At present, he is program director of Planning, Institutions and Transforming Spaces (PIT). Willem Salet was president of the Association of European Planning Schools (AESOP), at present he coordinates the AESOP Pool of Experts.
Stan Majoor is assistant professor at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, research center AISSR (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research). Since September 2008 he is program director of the bachelor in human geography and planning at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies. In 2009–2010 and from 2011 on he is holding the “Chair Leerhuis” at the Project Management Bureau of the municipality of Amsterdam.