By Lennart Runesson
Ph.D. Associate Professor
Human Geography
Gotland University college
Cramérgatan 3,
SE-621 57 Visby
Sweden
+46 (0) 498-29 98 04
lennart.runesson@hgo.se
Introduction
Theme cities or theme landscapes are popping up throughout the world
at an ever increasing speed. Almost without exception, they are geared
towards tourism and based on historic themes. In the mid 1990s, Visby
underwent a well-marked "Medieval grooming", in conjunction
with an application to be included on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
While attempting to create something in common – a collective
memory – the theme is lifted out of the dynamic cultural process.
The cultural heritage is relegated to some kind of eternal peep-show
while it simultaneously becomes the magic solution to a problem of
identity, which hopefully will create sufficient "attention".
The Scene
By means of a continuous process of
change towards a more and more globalised world, our surrounding world
can be seen to be growing, whilst the nation as the cultural bearer
of our collective memory is diminishing in significance. Former boundaries
alter, former states disappear and new ones are formed. It is common
today to describe surroundings as less and less spatial, or that space
as a dimension is losing its position. Political scientist Jean-Marie
Guehenno is in many ways a typical representative of this outlook.
He writes "Everything changes when human activity is liberated
from the barriers of space, when people's and capital's mobility blasts
geographical barriers. The spatial solidarity of the spirit of community
determined by territory disappears (…) Space has ceased to be
the decisive criteria (Hylland Eriksen, T. 1996 s. 75). There is much
that would indicate the contrary, that when we become increasingly
global in one way, regions and local communities become more important.
The place or space does not lose its position; we just alter our scales.
The scale is always important, but can of course change from one period
to another. When creating new identity places, we and the "other"
meet, and this encounter will enable us to form a local or regional
identity. The encounter in question may be between the global and
the local, by way of political, cultural or economic globalisation.
Formerly, identification took place on a local or regional scale,
now Visby is part of the global scene, and now it is a question of
"being", of attracting attention. Some kind of boundary
will be a necessary prerequisite, if we are to find our identity.
Borders can be physical or administrative, marking the end of one
territory and the beginning of another, which ultimately determines
where we belong, who we are affiliated with and who is on the outside.
Mental boundaries may be based on a number of different factors which
form the base of affinity, e.g. language, culture, religion or history.
Of utmost significance to the "Gotlandic identity" is drawing
up boundaries between "insiders" and "outsiders".
The more tourists that visit the island and the more Gotland is drawn
into a globalised world, the more important a regional Gotlandic identity
will become.
The problem with cultural affiliation
is that culture is an ever-changing process. Any attempts to create
a spirit of community on a cultural basis will run the obvious risk
of gelling the cultural in a (soon) antiquated idea of what is communal.
All present day commonalities or innovations become less and less
important. The ultimate criteria for affiliation lies further and
further back in history. As a consequence, anyone wishing to feel
part of the community must not only be born within the community,
but even be able to claim descendency from several generations back.
Cultural globalisation occurs wherever
diversity either increases or decreases, depending on the point of
departure. Since the same products and trends can be found at a large
number of places simultaneously, it may be claimed that diversity
is diminishing. We listen to the same music, watch the same films,
read the same literature and drink the same soft drinks. At any one
place, diversity may increase when new products are introduced and
used in a way specific for that place, thus being incorporated in
a completely new context.
Two other important common conceptions
within cultural globalisation are firstly, of theme towns as creators
of their own image, and secondly of the cultural heritage as an increasingly
important component of our times. Culture today, in a broad sense,
has become an increasingly important ingredient in the marketing of
our cities. It is not only the bourgeoise high culture that is used
for this purpose; even former sub-cultures have been revalued, and
not only become "house-trained" but also form an all the
more important part of the political rhetoric. Examples include the
hippie culture in southern California, that was elevated to a traditional
lifestyle, or the former gay march in Sydney, which was originally
staged by a relatively small number of homosexuals, but which has
developed into an enormous gimmick with several hundreds of thousands
of participants. Today, this event forms a significant element in
the marketing of the town.
Currently, most traditional basic industries
are experiencing a "de-industrialisation" process, whereas
the tourist and entertainment industries are expanding on the labour
market. Not only capital, but also work opportunities are on the move
both geographically and as regards content. These "migrations"
will create and recreate completely new landscapes.
Changes within the economy have heralded
the belief that we are about to enter a completely new economic era.
One of the most radical advocates is Michael H. Goldhaber, who claims
that all that is happening on the internet will mean that the former
money-based industrial economy will become extinct and replaced by
a new concept "attention economy" (Goldhaber 1997a, b).
According to his definition, this change is as significant as the
transition from feudalism to capitalism. He also means that "attention/uppmärksamhet"
is defined in the subject, in the single individual/city/ football
team, and that it is therefore not interchangeable between different
subjects. Neither is it possible to participate in some kind of commodity
exchange. The value of "attention" cannot be traded at a
market, since each individual "attention" is unique and
unquantifiable. The interesting point he makes, however, is that capital
will flow towards and run parallell with "attention". Anyone
managing to command a great deal of attention of some kind will be
able to benefit by these flows. By definition it will also be possible
to directly monetize "attention". It's price will be whatever
someone, e.g. a sponsor or the public at some sports event, is prepared
to pay. An increasingly larger part of our everyday lives tends to
be treated like commodities (as pointed out by Marx), albeit with
new overtones. Somehow "attention" will be valued on a market
and turned into cash or some other value.
The point in this connection is that
UNESCO's World Heritage List (www.unesco.org) provides an opportunity
to create attention, and the award in itself is a trademark, a guarantee
of high quality and of authenticity. In order to create as much attention
as possible, the trade mark must not be hollowed out by the granting
of this award to too many cities. Neverthelss, obvious candidates
for the World Heritage List should definitely not be overlooked, as
this will also diminish the value of the trademark. Voices are heard
today claiming that Sweden is no longer interested in receiving further
cultural heritage awards within the country – in fact for fear
of deflecting attention from the nine world heritage sites that have
already received the award.
When looking back on the 20th century,
we can see a development in Western Europe from smaller, extremely
disparate national states to a European project expressing political
globalisation. The aim has been a politically stable construction
with a common political structure. In the course of this century,
Eastern Europe has gone in the opposite direction from unity to smaller
states. But even within Western Europe we can observe a similar counter-force.
Simultaneous with globalisation, there is a regionalisation process
working in the opposite direction. In some places, regionalisation
is very strong and has been intensified by growing influence from
Brussels. Diversity and variation contra uniformity and homogenisation
has been manifested in many different ways, and this dualism that
can be found within cultural globalisation can also be found on the
global scene within economy and politics. Uniformity is not necessarily
so uniform and diversity is not always diverse. The division of globalisation
into three distinct processes is of purely analytical character. The
three processes never occur in isolation, but intermingle, making
it almost impossible to discern the one from the other. UNESCO's World
Heritage List is an undisputed representative of a globalised world,
but whether it represents economic, cultural or political globalisation
cannot be ascertained.
Theme cities
The development of Visby over the past
thousand years has been guided by a multitude of various decisions
regarding building, demolition and changes of different kinds, all
of which have had some degree of bearing on the town. One change has
superseded another, just as one natural species has superseded another,
and uniformity is hardly discernible, except where mankind has created
monocultures, protected from deviation and extraneous matter by means
of articifial fertilization, gene-modified grain and biocides. In
some respects, the medievalisation of the inner core of Visby has
furnished the town with the same traits as a monocultural agriculture.
What is the purpose of this monoculture, and whatever happened to
crop rotation?
Amsterdam's reputation for sin, sex
and drugs is merely an abstraction of the town, an image that has
developed in conjunction with mass tourism. This is the opinion of
Jan Nijman, who writes that "One of the effects of cultural globalization
for Amsterdam has been the commodification of its identity as a tolerant
place". He continues: "Tolerance, perhaps Amsterdam's most
prized commodity, is increasingly packaged and labelled to meet the
demands of mass tourism and instant gratification" (Nijman 1999
s. 155). He means that the inner core of the city (i.e. Red Light
City) has become a theme city based on sex and drugs, where museums
have evolved such as 'Hash museum', 'Cannabis Connoisseurs' Club and
other places of entertainment which target these two themes (sex and
drugs). This has very little, or nothing at all to do with the rest
of the city. The theme city is not the product of careful planning,
but has sprouted spontaneously. It functions, however, just like any
other theme city or theme park, but admission is free. Obviously,
the usual run-of-the-mill souvenirs can be bought, like T-shirts sporting
the slogan: I've been to Amsterdam, but I don't remember anything.
Another example of the construction
of a theme city or cultural heritage, is the mining town of Röros
in Norway. Röros was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List as
early as in 1980 (Gjestrum, JA. 1999). The town supported continuous
mining activities for 333 years, until 1977. The idea of preserving
the town evolved during the course of the 20th century. Consequently,
the majority of the buildings were subjected to "improvement"
by antiquarian authorities, leaving Röros with virtually nothing
authentic. Everything has been created and recreated in several phases.
Some parts of the long history of the town have thus been enhanced,
others long forgotten. Remarkably enough, the best preserved building
is a house that was dismantled before the curators came along and
moved to Oslo, where it was never reassembled. Today the house has
been returned to its original site in the town. Since it has remained
unpacked all this time, it has not been subjected to any "improvements".
Röros illustrates quite clearly how cultural heritage is a social
construction, where selection of objects to be preserved will obviously
change according to the latest way of thought that will be incorporated
in the prevailing cultural paradigm.
The man-made world, unlike a natural
landscape, should not be viewed as a passive background. It is created
by actors with capital, power and interest in changing the physical
environment. Once theme cities have found their niche, possibly enhancing
the local cultural heritage, diversity at any one particular place
will diminish. Homogenisation will be acquired locally, while diversity
may increase, or at least be preserved, globally.
Disney Towns
Disney, this mega media company, in
addition to theme parks, which enjoy enormous success throughout the
world, has today also created its own cities, or town districts. An
entertainment centre has been built around 42nd Street and Times Square
in New York with restaurants, shops and street life all according
to a stipulated theme. Great things are expected of Disney, especially
since this part of New York was formerly a seedy porno district. Disney's
forte is choosing a historic era, cultivating it, peeling away the
nasty bits to create an image, more concentrated, more real than the
era itself ever was. Many a warning finger has, however, been raised.
The historian Shelby Foote warns: "The Disney people will do
to American history what they have already done to the animal kingdom
– sentimentalize it out of recognition" (Wallace, m. 1996
s. 165). Others have been less adverse to the development. James Rouse,
a leading building developer behind many extensive transformation
projects in USA, such as Boston's Faneuil Hall, Baltimore's inner
harbour and New York's South Street Seaport, means that "Disneyland
is the greatest piece of urban design in the United States today"
(IBID s. 144).
Disney creates characteristic American
provincial towns with the classic qualities of times long past –
timber houses with horizontal panels, a perfect lawn, housewife and
two cars. New residents are required to sign a twenty-page contract,
pledging to follow certain codes of behaviour, where children do not
cause a disturbance, dogs are of a stipulated maximum height, cars
are parked correctly, swearing at your neighbours is strictly prohibited,
church attendance mandatory, lawns are mown, adultery not permitted;
in short you are required to lead a "respectable life".
Each resident must be prepared to sacrifice part of his or her personal
freedom in favour of "real" and "true" life.
What Disney is trying to do is to recreate
the idyllic life of a time long past, a way of life that has never
in fact existed in reality. It is simply and solely a conception of
an idyllic life in concentrated form, untouched and undisturbed by
any extraneous adverse interference. As A.M. Stern, a member of the
board of directors of Walt Disney said, it "…has taught
Americans a lot of what they're missing in their urban life"
(Adler, J. Malone, M. 1995 s. 68). If we peel away everything that
can conceivably disturb the ideal image, what will be left worth living?
Eldon Tyrell is the director of Tyrell Co, which manufactures replicants
in the film Blade Runner. His business concept is creating replicants
that are "more human than humans". He claims that "if
we give them the past, we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions
and consequently we can control them better" (Blade Runner 1986).
An attempt has been made to illustrate
this in a somewhat brutal way in the film "Truman show"
from 1999 where the main character is the only one not to be included
in this gigantic soap opera. The film is extremely effective in putting
a finger on how we act towards each other and towards our surroundings,
depending on affiliation or alienation, level of abstraction, how
concrete our relations are and how these are expressed. This is obviously
a nightmare scenario of the film world, but how does this differ from
the fiction towns of reality? The question is raised as to who would
have the possibility of creating his or her own stylized imaginary
world and then place us others like puppets in one big "fantasy
of horror"? Of even more interest is the question of who on earth
would want to live there?
Cultural Heritage cities
Something that has become increasingly
important during the past years, even on an international level, is
different ways of preserving and enhancing cultural heritage. This
global trend has caught on both in urban and rural environments. The
shaping of the new landscape is widely based on some conception about
the local history. An era will be singled out to represent an older
"happier community and a more varied landscape". The marketing
of Visby has pinpointed the Hanseatic Town and thereby the Medieval
Period. When 13th century Hanseatic Visby became the World Heritage
theme in the 1990s, the town became significantly medievalised within
the space of a few years, and the Medieval Period has been accorded
a prominent role in a whole range of areas. As a result, the ordinary,
everyday environment of the town is undergoing change from a random
mixture of styles and architecture, etc. to a relatively homogenous
character. Consequently, a theme town will eventually be created,
where anything outside the stipulated theme, i.e. the rest of the
history of Visby, will be played down.
In Disney's version of a theme town,
the inhabitants are quite aware of what they are letting themselves
in for; they have made an active choice and they move into a private
enclave isolated from the rest of society. This is not the case when
it comes to intramural Visby. Any attempts to enforce such an all-encompassing
theme, which would affect everyone who lives or works there, would
encounter almost insurmountable obstacles. A significantly higher
degree of abstraction of the town will be necessary, and more concrete
relations will be undermined.
This is not the first time we have recycled
our history within the urban environment. At the end of the 19th century
the prevailing ideology within urban architecture was National Romanticism,
which aimed not least at reinforcing national traits. One noteable
difference, however, is that during the former period, there was a
distinct element of resistance, both on the part of architects and
even within other academic circles. A quotation from a well-known
article in the Swedish national daily "Dagens Nyheter" expresses
this resistance very aptly. Verner von Heidenstam wrote that there
would soon be plaques on houses claiming that "in the Year of
our Lord 1893 this old building was made even older" (Eriksson,
E. 1998 s. 145). No such resistance or even counterpart to this ideal,
or to the picture painted of the town, has been noted in present day
Visby. There would appear to be absolute consensus on the issue. During
the past twenty years, the cultural heritage of Visby has been granted
a very prominent position in the creation of urban environments where
one part of the cultural heritage has been polished, cleaned and consolidated,
while other parts have been relegated to the depths of oblivion. It
is essentially a question of cultivating, packaging and selling a
concept of Visby's role as a town.
It is quite permissable to deviate from
this theme outside the Town Wall – and this is where 90% of
the inhabitants of the town live. This is also the main area of consumption
that is not directly connected to tourism or entertainment. There
are, however, examples of medievalisation in some new building enterprises.
The new student residence area on the site of the former dairy has
been furnished with medieval corbie-stepped gables.
The inner core of the town of Visby
is clearly demarcated, and present-day Visby can be seen to consist
of four clearly separate areas. The first zone is the harbour area,
the arrival point for most visitors. The Medieval theme has not caught
on here; the area is characterized by rational harbour activity, although
this is on the decline, and is gradually being taken over by pleasure
boats, luxury cruisers, restaurants and pubs. More changes are to
be expected, and the planning stage is in full swing. The next zone
is the intramural part of town, which has a prominent Medieval profile.
The third zone is spread immediately outside the Eastern Gate (Österport),
and is known as Östercentrum. This is where the modernistic and
functional town has been given if not free, at least slack reins,
with wide streets and relatively low buildings, of a distinct commercial
character. The area is, however subordinate to the intramural town,
or rather The Wall; stipulations dictate the height of buildings and
in fact prohibit any building at all within a wide area surrounding
the Town Wall. Even in this zone, certain Medieval elements can be
found in more recent buildings. The fourth zone represents a typical
residential area on the outskirts with houses, industry and commercial
zones, having no connection with the Medieval town.
Two things disappear when medievalising
a town – the rest of the town's history and the diversity and
variation of the Medieval Period itself. If there was any era when
Visby was globalised and incorporated in an enormous international
exchange network, it was the Medieval Period. This network was not
only dealing in commodity exchange, but was engaged in a whole range
of different spheres. Architecture, languages, food, religion, art
and sculpture are just a few examples of realms where activities took
place on an international level, while the characteristics of local
tradition were simultaneously preserved. These contacts led to the
creation of new combinations, which in turn developed into something
new and exclusive for an individual place. The influence of global
elements fostered new features in local traditions, which in turn
were spread and received as global traditions in other places, where
they were incorporated into the prevailing local traditions. Relatively
speaking, it would seem that the Medieval inhabitant of Visby was
more cosmopolitan than his or her present day successors.
Historities
The theme city, Disney, cultural heritage
and changes in Visby are expressions of a global world. When the town
of Visby is to be defined it will not be the local, nor the regional,
not even the Swedish, but UNESCO's view that will be forwarded, based
on a distinct global perspective. In this process, not only will architecture
be affected, but this process will intrude in our everyday lives,
and we will find ourselves obliged to adapt to new stipulations and
adhere to them. Practically every place in Visby today signals "Medieval",
and most of it is merely pastiche. In one way a small part of our
history, true or false, will become almost interactive with ourselves
in this present day. Medievalisation will mean that all developments
and other operations carried out in intramural Visby will be governed
by a Medieval ideal seen through our present day glasses. The window
we open, however, will be minute, since, as Roy the replicant expresses
it in one of the final scenes of Blade Runner, "All those moments
will be lost in time, like tears in rain". Where memory fades,
historic reconstructions make their entrance, not based on any desire
of knowledge of history, but as a "histority" created in
political rhetoric. It's a question of which group will manage to
get their conception of Visby accepted as "the truth".
Milieux de memoire will be replaced
by lieux de memoire (Nora, P. 1989) – concrete memorial settings
will give way to memorial sites, thereby opening up the way for "pastiche",
"fiction" and "genuine fake" in well-known postmodern
spirit. Memory is life, while history is the construction of something
that no longer exists, a representative of something that has been.
These lieux de memoire may be memorial temples such as archives and
museums or ancient monuments such as grave mounds, church ruins or
other buildings. They are exposed to the most impersonal and abstract
interpretations, but at the same time they are simple and directly
accessible to the senses - "moments of history torn away from
the movement of history, then returned; no longer quite life, not
yet death, like shells on the shore when the sea of living memory
has receded" (Nora, P. 1989 s. 12).
In "The Life and Death of Great
American Cities" from 1962, Jane Jacobs formulated the contents
of an ideal city. According to Jacobs trying to make small towns of
cities by creating city neighbourhood units is just as futile as trying
to convert small towns into cities by providing the town with a classification
of functions according to the modernism model where all street life
is more or less discontinued. The special thing about a city is encounter
with strangers, which is just as normal as meeting an acquaintance
in a small town. It's a question of two types of existence, city life
and small town life. A Gesellschaft and a Gemeinschaft (Asplund, J.
1995).
What Disney tried to achieve is a Gemeinschaft,
but based entirely on Gesellschaft conditions. Is it possible to construct
a spirit of community on a commercial basis, and presume that this
will be replaced by concrete forms as soon as people – who have
also made a commercial decision – move in?
The small town of Visby can be found
on a sliding scale between the two extremities of Gesellschaft and
Gemeinschaft, moving in the direction of Gesellschaft. Medievalisation
demands Gesellschaft if it is to be enforced. It is an impersonal
part of our history that is being projected; nobody has had any physical
relations with it. We can only relate to an outer layer of something
that at least somewhat corresponds to our conception of Medieval buildings
and style ideology.
Epilogue
Ongoing and future research will investigage
our way of creating and consuming cultural heritage. What will be
the role of cultural heritage, and how will this be related to the
rest of history? How can this be capitalized, taking "attention
economy" into consideration?
The inner cores of the town centres
of the capitals of the new Baltic States have been added to the World
Heritage List. Which history has been chosen to be enhanced there?
Is there a "Golden Era" that has formerly been concealed?
Anything from the Soviet occupation that should be brought to light?
How does the World Heritage Award operate, and how is it put into
practice in other comparable towns?
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