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Former Academy Director Sarah Chaplin interviewed all three

European City of the Year nalists when they presented in

London on the eve of the Awards.

Listening to representatives from the three nalists inthe Academys European City of the Year category sharetheir insights made me realise how a place can undergofundamental change and yet still retain its core identityin the process. What was also clear from the threepresentations was how the speed of change can varyenormously and the political and economic effects of anyintervention can be very challenging in terms of securing adesired outcome. But the thing that can hold a successfulplace together derives from the implicit respect shown bythe change-makers for the DNA-like specicity of the placeto begin with.

Kristiaan Borret, Antwerps stadsbouwmeester (cityarchitect) spoke passionately and convincingly about thebenets of slow urbanism of which he has become awareduring his involvement with the gradual transformationof Belgiums second city; from somewhere steeped in itsFlemish history as a strategic but divided river portand a global diamond trade centre, to a burgeoning new

European hub for the creative industries. He describesAntwerps situation within the region as a point of intensitystraddling a river, with many post-industrial voids thatneeded to be addressed as part of its urban renewal andsocial restructuring.

Their approach may have been slow, but it was also bold:the city bought a former garage site in a completely no-go area and built a new library there, hoping to changepeoples habits and associations with that part of townthrough re-assigning its usage. It worked. The former SailorsQuarter, with its proliferation of malade businesses, also

became safer and fairer with the introduction of a newhealth centre being located just where it was most needed close to where the prostitutes continue to ply their trade.

Part of the slowness was deliberate, but another inuencingfactor was the typically fragmented nature of land ownershipin Belgium, making it hard to assemble large parcels of land forpublic projects. The citys Vespa Housing project tackled thisissue, alongside making available the kinds of dwellings thatthe private market is not interested in providing a creativelling of both a commercial void and a physical place void.Borret described the conuence of political will that initiatedthis: a desire to provide high quality urban development andeffective instruments to deliver it. Either tactic on its own isnot enough to constitute a recipe for success.

Learning from EuropeAntwerp, Lyon and Hamburg

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Conuence, a large scaleproject that has re-used oldindustrial land to double the

size of central Lyon

John Thompson

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At heart an academic as well as a practicing urbanist,Borrets underlying research question in bringing theseprojects to fruition was typological: to explore the variantson the urban block more fully, in order to understandbetter the operational and programmatic qualities ofcontemporary urban tissue. Conducting this experimentslowly has meant that the usual economic peaks andtroughs are less apparent; that is to say their impact isreduced, allowing longer term needs to be met. But themost important achievement was a different kind of longgame: to change perceptions within Flanders, which hashad a strong anti-urban tradition, so that people startedto embrace the notion of urban living, and in so doingrejuvenate the social and cultural life of Anwerp. Borretrevealed how an unexpected by-product of this was toforge a community that is now much more engaged withurban planning. People are out there defending their newurban neighbourhoods, holding referenda and articulatingtheir concerns. As far as Borret is concerned, more protestmeans better places, and is the clearest evidence yet thattheir slogan The City Belongs to Everyone is reallyworking.

Under a similar rubric, Die Stadt Gehr t Allen, Andreas

Kellner, the vice president of Hamburgs planningdepartment, told a different story of post-industrialrejuvenation and engagement. As a city-state, Hamburg haspursued a self-determining agenda, aiming to overhaul itsraison dtre after containerisation took away its formereconomic mainstay. The approach was to engage withthe redundant dockland waterfront as a positive, startingfrom both ends as an urbanist: that is to say, consideringsimultaneously the massive scale of the potential projectand also the small-scale day-to-day requirements of thevarious actors involved. HafenCity is now a central part ofHamburgs overall identity, even more populous than it was

at the beginning of the nineteenth century when 20,000people lived there before an earlier port redevelopmentphase.

The transition from a neglected wasteland to a fully-functioning and integrated neighbourhood has been fairlyrapid, but it was not without its challenges, not least agrassroots conference on the future of Wilhelmsberg whichcould have thrown a spanner into the works, but has in factbeen turned to the citys advantage. What the conferencedid was awaken motivation and produce an appetite andconviction for a new approach, which culminated in 2005in a new-style, senate-approved Framework Plan. This wasas ambitious as it was unequivocal in its intent: improve

Learning from Europe cont.Antwerp, Lyon and Hamburg

Above: HafenCity has re-used Hamburgs old portwarehouses to create acomplex, mixed-use cityquarter

John Thompson

Opposite: Antwerp,Belgiums second largestcity and one of Europeslargest ports

City of Antwerp

Right: Franois Bregnac(Lyon);

Andreas Kellner(Hamburg);

Kristiaan Borret AoU(Antwerp)

John Thompson

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the local situation for people with an innovative, por table even expor table approach to mixed-use developmentthat would turn the tables of for tune for the city quitefundamentally.

On the face of it, things have worked extremely well, butbehind the scenes it has also demanded the emergenceof a whole gamut of trust and collaboration betweenthe various actors, not least to overcome differencesof opinion. Whilst Kellner admitted this has produced acertain amount of consultation fatigue, the net result is acity that is now more than capable of taking democraticand politically robust decisions about place-making.

Lyon faced similar political and physical challenges,as Franois Bregnac, the interim director of the citysUrbanism Agency, described. Built on the conuence ofthe Sane and the Rhne, the core of the city occupies anenviable location, but this was regrettably marred in the1960s when the autoroute ploughed through the middleof the city, cutting it off from much of its river frontage aswell as carving up neighbourhoods. Simultaneously, andfailing to take their cue from Tony Garniers integratedmodernist estates that still remain popular today, a string

of high-rise mega-structures set amid green plains roseup in the banlieues surrounding Lyon; in theory a boldplanning idea but in reality a living nightmare. Repairingthis kind of urban damage required more than just atechnical solution, and certainly more than a bunch ofpublic realm improvements. Lyon took its cues early onfrom Barcelona in this respect, devising an almost spiritualapproach to its urban transformation, starting with its PlanLumire.

The introduction of an annual festival of sound andlight was a key par t of achieving what Bregnac calls the

re-bewitched city. Evacuating 2,000 car parking spaces,bringing dance to the streets, opening up km of r iverpathways, and planting green lanes all over the city wereother important moves on the part of the UrbanismAgency. Instead of large parcels of land assigned as urbanparks, which was seen as a 19th century approach, naturewas brought intentionally right through the city, in anattempt to reconnect the city centre with its suburbs,making the passage from one to the other easier andmore uid.

Bregnac made the process of urban change sounddeceptively easy: its simply a case of joining up thestrategy to the plan to a sequence of projects. But he

also was quick to point out this is not in any way a linearprocess you have to identify projects to implement atthe same time as formulating the strategy, and it generallytakes 25 years before it all happens. There was a hint offrustration in Bregnacs refreshingly honest account ofhis experience at the helm, as he wondered aloud if theycould have been more open to innovation where theirheritage was concerned and a little less enamoured ofItalian urban precedent.

But Bregnac was also thrilled with the effects of bottom-

up thinking in the city, which has helped establish it assomething of an urban living pioneer, citing proudly thatBoris Johnson stole the idea of the urban bike schemefrom Lyon; this French regional capital is much furtherdown the line towards becoming a car-free zone thanLondon. There is still much more to be done to reconnectthe suburbs to the city centre, but attitudes have shiftedand it now seems possible to dream a new dream ofa Garden City Lyon that goes way beyond Garniersmodernist vision, showing us how to fashion a leisurelyand liveable Garden City for the people.

Sarah Chaplin AoU

Director, Evolver LLP