"Experience City - hybrid cultural projects and per formative urban spaces" study the development in Copenhagen and in the larger provincial towns in Denmark in which cultural scenes, houses of music and per formative urban spaces have been developed. Often the programme economies aimed at experience alone have not been sufficient to fund the construction. They have therefore often been merged with other dynamic local forces - e.g. education. But it is precisely this merger between education, the production of knowledge and experience that lays the foundation for what we call hybrid cultural projects and per formative urban spaces. "Hybrid cultural projects" are characterised by a conscious fusion between urban transformation and new knowledge centres, cultural institutions and experience environments.

Similarly, "performative urban spaces" are characterised by stages for performance, for learning and for experience. The performative activity can take on the guise of events - something temporary, but still recurring, which influences the shape and identity of the space.

 

It is a thesis that the strength of these projects is the conscious combination between learning and playing, between public and private, and between artistic quality and the popular activity. The starting point is a common willingness to include many different groups and at the centre of all a dynamic hybrid of edutainment, high culture and bodily exertion is challenging our traditional perception of urban life.

 

Performative urban spaces are interesting as they, in conjunction with the hybrid cultural projects, will be able to latch on to a variety of different purposes that have to do with cultural exchange.

In these projects we find a certain drive towards a public urban life that does not merely encompass the well-off and the well-educated parts of the population; the projects have the potential to include and activate newcomers to the Danish society, the young ones, the old ones, the not so well-adapted etc.

 

Thus, it is the overall thesis of the project that these hybrid cultural projects, stages and spaces are potential "public domains", i.e. places for social and cultural exchange between lifestyle groups with different values and worldviews (Haajer & Reijndorp, 2006).

 

Moreover, it is the thesis of the project

-     that these projects will contribute to further a new urban political agenda within the current debate about the future of our cities in "The Experience Economy";

-     that they can become the hotbed of a new urban culture that consciously fuses the traditional shopping and café life of the city with knowledge, experience and play;

-     that they contribute to the development of new architectural typologies and urban spaces that often draw upon the scale and typological multiplicity of the industrial architecture and the harbour environments, and which, through a new orchestration, will help both enrich our architectural heritage and create new architectural projects focusing on transparency.

 

Taking the following research themes as its point of departure, the research project will seek new knowledge related to three themes:

• - Urban transformation and planning strategy
• - Urban culture
• - Architectural typologies and urban spaces