Excite City: Designing the Experience City

This paper takes its point of departure in the pressure of the experience economy on European cities - a pressure which in recent years has found its expression in a number of comprehensive transformations of the physical and architectural environments, and new eventscapes related to fun and cultural experience are emerging. The physical, cultural and democratic consequences of this development are discussed in the paper, which concludes with a presentation of a new field of research that highlights the problems and the new opportunities with which "the experience city" is faced. Special attention is put on a new research project called "Experience City - hybrid cultural projects and performative urban spaces". The thesis and research themes are presented and related to the general framework of present cultural planning and post industrial urban transformation.