Urban Space and the Management of Cultural Diversity

Berlin-Belfast symposium
Berlin, 4 - 5 February 1999

The purpose of a joint Berlin-Belfast symposium based for two days at the European Academy of the Urban Environment in Berlin is to share experience about how cultural and historical experience and difference can be expressed creatively and constructively in the urban fabric of the city. Drawing on cultural diversity and differences, how can the city's inhabitants be made to 'feel at home' and to identify with the city, while at the same time an attractive image and ambience is presented to potential tourists and visitors? In Berlin, a city seeking to define a new identity and subject to various ethnic and migratory influences, the reconciliation of the needs and identities of 'Ossies' and 'Wessies' nevertheless finds a parallel with the need to give expression to the identities of unionists and nationalists within the urban fabric of Belfast.

Specifically, the symposium will share experiences of the following:

• public art, monuments and 'sites of memory' within the city
• policy relating to the encouragement of cultural quarters
• policy relating to spatial planning and urban design
• policy relating to place promotion of the city
• policy relating to place naming

While the management of cultural diversity also involves, for example, housing and educational policies the focus of the symposium will be on how the city is represented to its inhabitants and to outsiders in these two cities coming to terms with divided pasts and difficult histories. The focus is on how tensions involved with cultural diversity can be creatively managed. The identity and marketing of cities is of major economic development significance and allies with Anglo-German Foundation concerns with adjustment to European and global economic change and social issues including multi-culturalism. The intention is that the sharing of experience through the symposium will yield new insights with policy implications.

Programme

Thursday 04 February

09.00 Introduction and welcome
Dr. Hanns-Uve Schwedler, Berlin
Dr. William J. V. Neill, Belfast

09.20 - 09.50 Identity and the city in Berlin and Belfast - an overview
Dr. William J. V. Neill, Belfast

Spatial planning and urban design in Berlin

09.50 - 10.10 Critical reconstruction and the design plan for inner-city Berlin
Wolfgang Süchting, Ministry of Urban Development, Environmental Protection and Technology, Berlin

10.10 - 10.30 Should the built legacy and memory of the GDR period be preserved?
Christina Laduch, Bezirksamt Berlin-Mitte
10.30 - 10.50 Discussion

10.50 - 11.20 Coffee

Spatial planning and urban design in Belfast

11.20 - 11.40 Victorian Belfast - preserving the architectural legacy
Sir Charles E. B. Brett, Architectural Heritage, Belfast

11.40 - 12.00 Architectural ambivalence: the built environment and identity in Belfast
Ken Sterrett, Belfast
12.00 - 12.30 Discussion

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

Cultural diversity and the city with special reference to cultural quarters

13.30 - 14.00 (title tbn)
Professor Peter Heine, HU Berlin

14.00 - 14.30 West Belfast as a cultural enclave
J. Malachy McEldowney, Belfast

14.30 - 15.00 Discussion

15.00 - 15.15 Coffee

15.15 - 16.30 Workshop sessions on topics covered so far

Friday 05 February

09.00 - 09.40 Review of previous day's proceedings
Hanns-Uve Schwedler, Bill Neill and others

Promoting the city in Berlin and Belfast

09.40 - 10.10 Promoting the identity of the city - the Berlin experience
Bernhard Schneider, Partner für Berlin

10.10 - 10.40 Promoting the identity of the city - the Belfast experience
Ian Adamson, Belfast

10.40 - 11.00 Discussion

11.00 - 11.15 Coffee

11.15 - 12.00 Drawing together parallel themes, experiences and policy / practice implications
Plenary session

12.00 - 13.30 Lunch

15.00 - 18.00 Excursion/study visit Kreuzberg as a cultural enclave
Ms. Müller, FU Berlin

Participants:
Academics, city administrators, community representatives and local politicians concerned with these issues in Belfast and Berlin.

Conference languages: German and English

Dates and venue of symposium :
4 - 5 February 1999
Europäische Akademie Berlin
Bismarckallee 46-48
14193 Berlin

With financial support by the Anglo-German Foundation, London