NUS Cities Lecture Series 13
Where next with the Art of City Making?
We are in a crisis and it is getting worse. There is an urgency to act and address the big issues that truly matter to all of us and the planet. It is increasingly clear that a business-as-usual approach will not get us to where we need to be. Our economic order and way of life are materially expansive, socially divisive and environmentally hostile.
Cities need to respond with imagination and determination - build a community of practitioners, activists, thinkers, authorities, and allies in a shared quest to change city-making in a disruptive way. This movement for change should inspire cities to do things differently. We need a common goal, shared vision and principles for strategic thinking on cities and metropolises.
It arises from a substantial global consensus on the challenges we must face, on the role of cities in addressing those global imperatives, and an increasing realisation that the changes we must make are not proceeding with the intensity or speed needed.
We need to accelerate urban solutions with dynamism, verve and imagination by reactivating the non-conformist energy and disruptive edge that underlies urban inventiveness. Our cities can transform themselves in innovative ways. It is possible to generate sustainable and inclusive prosperity. It demands a quest for principles, intentions, and courageous decisions. Our time demands no less.
Overriding everything, is the need to understand that transformation on the scale now required is a cultural project, if we are to address what really matters to people, cities and the world. Its about values, behaviours, the skills we need and choices we make as to what we are and want to be. It is the biggest culture project of our times.
Mr. Charles Landry
Creator of the Evaluation Tool - The Creative Cities Index
Charles Landry is an international authority on the use of imagination and creativity in urban change. He invented the concept of the Creative City in the late 1980’s which became a global movement with the intent to connect the triad - culture, creativity and city making. His evaluation tool - the Creative Cities Index, conceived with the Basque Country and its core city Bilbao, has been implemented in 25 cities in Europe and beyond. He is also the co-founder of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin.
He twice chaired the European Capital of Innovation Award as well as the EU Research & Innovation Commission project ‘The human-centred city: Opportunities for citizens through research and innovation’. He has published extensively – most recently ‘The Civic City in a Nomadic World’, ‘The Creative Bureaucracy’ (with Margie Caust), ‘An Advanced Introduction to the Creative City’, ‘Psychology & the City’ (with Chris Murray) and ‘The Digitized City’
Date: 27th March 2024, Wednesday
Location: NUS SDE3 LT426
Time: 6:30 p.m. SGT - 8:30 p.m. SGT
NUS Cities Lecture Series investigates ideas, policies and projects developed by urban experts, which aspire to create sustainable, resilient, and liveable cities.