Pecha Kucha Night - ‘Speed art & chit chat’ for creatives

In 2003, two employees of Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa) in Tokyo felt there was a profound need for a place that young creatives could socialize, network and present their work publicly. Thus was born Pecha Kucha Night, which has since spread to 103 cities around the world.

Each month a group of designers, creatives, artists meet in, well, a creative space to view peer presentations of their work. Ah, but what makes it all so

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‘Crashed Ice’ brings cultural identity to northern cities

Cities love having an event followed by the sentence, “Only in ____”, even if it’s just for that year. It provides them with a unique cultural identity that sets them apart from every city in the world, such as the Running of the Bulls, only in Pamplona.

Speaking of which, who knows if that was part of the inspiration behind Crashed Ice, where four gutsy padded-up skaters fight through elements of roller derby, hockey and the

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Establishing a music scene 101

Every district wants a music scene, but not every district has one. Creative class author Richard Florida, a music fan to the nth degree, is spending a lot of research time providing the answers why, the first findings of which can be found in his recent report, Music Clusters: A Preliminary Analysis.

First of all, one needs to understand that only this with music as primary employment are defined in this study, not self-employed musicians, secondary

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A treatise on building vibrant cultural quarters

Today’s entry will be a little uncommon, but rather extraordinary as we present Urban Cultures’ detailed presentation behind their Cultural Quarters: Necessary Conditions and Success Factors checklist. There really are few if any firms that have such fine-grain knowledge in helping cities invest in such places, and we’re glad to be associated with them.

The treatise follows:

An essential prerequisite for a vibrant cultural quarter is the

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Cultural Quarters: Necessary Conditions and Success Factors checklist

Continuing our understanding of natural cultural districts, here’s Urban Cultures’ (profiled previously) Necessary Conditions and Success Factors checklist for what makes a vibrant cultural quarter:

Activity
- Extent and variety of cultural venues
- Presence of an evening economy, including café culture
- Strength of small-firm economy, including creative businesses
- Access to universities and education providers
-

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The four types of cultural quarters, progressively speaking

Speaking of natural cultural districts...

Urban Cultures is a London-based company with extensive experience in helping develop creative cultural quarters throughout major cities in England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia that raise the bar in defining ‘cool towns’, including a CoolTown favorite, the Temple Bar cultural district (pictured) in Dublin. John Montgomery, the Managing Director, is an

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How do you know you’re in a natural cultural district?

...that is, unlike an unnatural one where most of the buildings are large-scale - designed, funded and run by city governments and corporations… and feel that way?

Continuing a look at the research of professor Mark Stern, profiled in the previous entry, natural cultural districts:

- rely on self-organized local players, organized from the bottom-up;
- are cultivated, as in economic gardening (a few examples listed here), not

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Maybe you should think twice about investing millions in that fancy new performing arts building to revitalize your city. While Richard Florida has long de-emphasized such large-scale investments, professor Mark Stern, Co-Director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania provides a detailed answer below to the question, “Well then, now what?“

“While the arts are commerce, they revitalize cities not through their bottom-line but through their social role. The arts build

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Music scenes a sign of economic rise

What does a thriving music scene have to do with a city’s economic growth? According to economist Richard Florida in his recent study, “It signals the rise of regional ecosystems that are not only open to new sounds and new ideas, but have the size, scale and commercial oomph to retain key talent and turn their ideas into global commercial successes. Once music scenes of this scale get going, they produce a logic and momentum of their own and signal that

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‘Live art’ among living streets

As profiled in the previous entry, Buenos Aires’ bohemian neighborhood of San Telmo becomes a pedestrian-only arts district (the Feria) on Sundays, and I thought I’d provide a photo of the crowd favorite wind-blown ‘live art’ couple I mentioned in that story.

It’s not like you see this kind of art in every neighborhood, but perhaps it’s worth looking at why San Telmo is a popular host for not only this weekly version of live art, but many others.

- The

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The mother of Sunday street closings

Six days of the week this street (Defensa) in the bohemian neighborhood of San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina is full of cars, adding to the city’s reputation as the second noisiest in the world (next to New York).

However, every Sunday it’s a remarkably different place when what seems like at least half a mile of the street is closed to auto traffic and replaced completely with people, as you can see.  In fact, there were so many people walking through

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The outdoor cinemas of Greece

What happens when you combine great weather with a return to inner cities, you get the rising popularity of the open air cinema (therina) in Athens, Greece, where a hundred of them now thrive.

Another reason for the return of the outdoor theaters (there used to be thousands in Greece) is that digital technology is allowing just about any film to be shown, anytime, anywhere. Thus, even cold weather cities are taking advantage, like “Living Room Theaters in

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Ani DiFranco and her church-turned-concert hall

Recording artist Ani DiFranco wanted to energize the downtown of her hometown of Buffalo with some creative spirit. So she did what any other person would have done - transforming a doomed 19th century church into a 21st century destination that houses a concert hall (pictured), a record studio, an art gallery and bar/lounge.

The city slated the 1871-built church for demolition in 1995, and within a year DiFranco and her record company

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Lessons on how to spark an indie rock scene

Rule #1. It has little to do with intentionally creating a music scene, especially genre-oriented. Musicians are fiercely independent - they’ll go where they’re personally inspired, not where city bureaucrats are trying to engineer it. Besides, once they’re successful they no doubt enjoy being big fish in little ponds (ie REM in Athens, GA) rather than vice versa, so don’t expect them to move to the equivalent of a Hollywood for musicians. There

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Celebrating the microbreweries

In continuing our previous story on the authentic value of microbreweries, thanks to the producers of the documentary, America Beer, here’s a list of 38 of the U.S.‘s top microbreweries that they visited in 40 days, followed by their abridged notes on what made each of them unique:

1. Brooklyn Brewery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY - Black Chocolate Stout
2. McNeill’s Brewery, Brattleboro, VT - In a former firehouse and police station
3. Long Trail Brewing Co.,

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Beer - Going local

You can’t really have a true third place for the creative class without serving beer, and it’s not authentic unless it’s brewed right on the spot. So here’s to the full-flavored beers of the microbreweries that have thrived “in the face of the fizzy yellow stuff” that have dominated the mainstream and every national supermarket.

Things looked bleak by the end of the 1970s for local craft brewers, when corporate consolidation left the U.S. with less than 50 breweries.

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The preeminent event for art and technology

“This (Hatchfest) (profiled yesterday) looks really cool! But for us who don’t live in the states… do you know if there are any similar things going on in Europe?“

That would easily be the Ars Electronica Festival showcasing art and technology, which has had a major economic and cultural impact on its annual host city, Linz, Austria.

Not only was Linz a declining steel town that knew it had to transition to the information economy to survive,

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Film, music, writing, fine arts, fashion, photography, architecture, design…

...are some pretty desirable talents in establishing both a cultural and economic base for any city, but what has that got to do with Bozeman, MT and Asheville, NC?  A lot, thanks to an increasingly popular event known as Hatchfest.

Held annually in Bozeman since fall 2004 and for the first time in Asheville in spring 2008, students from around the world participate in competitions and exhibitions while being

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Vienna, Austria - The origin of ‘coffee culture’

No, coffee culture did not originate from that corporate chain based in Seattle, but its history is indeed rooted in the ‘kaffeehaus’ of Austria, where it’s been a fixture of Vienna’s everyday life since the 17th century.

Like today’s coffeehouses in the U.S., Viennese coffee houses are meeting places not only for fresh brews, but also intellectuals, politicians, businesspeople. They’re famous for their laid-back atmosphere and the now

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Torpedo factory turned artist community

‘Make art not war’ is the literal theme at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, located in the heart of Alexandria, Virginia’s vibrant downtown waterfront.

Originally built in 1918 as a torpedo factory and used as such until the end of World War II, the City of Alexandria bought the buildings from the U.S. government in 1969. Marian Van Landingham, President of the local Art League at the time, proposed renovating the buildings into artist studios. Long

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A national model for arts as economic development

How do you attract artists into a neighborhood/district, then keep them from being gentrified out of the area later? You may want to look at the Paducah Artist Relocation Program (mentioned here a couple of times before) - that far and away provides one of the best programs I’ve seen to turn artists into permanent building owners.

Based in the small town of Paducah, Kentucky (pop. 27,000), implemented in August of 2000, and now having

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The Rock & Roll Hotel

How does one combine history with contemporary culture while revitalizing a financially neglected commercial district?  Check out Washington DC’s Rock & Roll Hotel in the up and coming H Street Corridor.

The live music nightclub’s website best frames its historical context: “Places like The Savoy in London and the Inter-Continental Hotel in Paris have established themselves throughout their history as bedrocks of prestige and luxury service. The Chelsea in New York

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Some ideas on protecting creatives from gentrification…

We know more than enough stories of creatives being priced out of the neighborhoods they helped revitalize, but what about examples of how they’re being protected?

Bookmark this page, and I’ll keep it updated with city programs to support creatives. The list to date:

City-led programs:

-  Portland, OR amended its housing regulations to enable artists to live, work and sell under one roof.

- Toledo, OH put in place tax-abatement

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‘America’s Best Places for Artists’

We all pretty much know that wherever the artists go, the risk-averse with the money will soon follow, gentrifying the place and thereby forcing the artists to move out to find the next ‘hot spot.‘ BusinessWeek is the latest to cover this well-known trend, in Bohemian Today, High-Rent Tomorrow.

Here’s their top ten list based on these criteria: Art establishments per 100,000 people, percentage of population age 25-34; Arts & Culture Index; Diversity

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Living room theaters - you knew it was coming

You have to admit you saw this was inevitable, it was just a matter of when.

Movie theaters provide the thrill of a large screen, a first-run movie, the buzz of a live audience and the satisfaction that you ‘went out and did something’. Home theaters now have terrific picture and sound (how many of you traveled out to watch the Superbowl on your friends’ HDTV?), with the comfort of more sophisticated food and drink during the movie.  It was too

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