Chapter 13 Festival City, Rotterdam

Abstract

In an environment that sees cities vying to attract people, businesses and investments in increasingly competitive markets, many municipalities have identified place identity and image as parts of their unique selling point. The high profile and collaborative nature of festivals means that they are seen by city marketing bodies as an important tool in shaping and widening awareness of the unique qualities of their city’s particular cultural and built environments. The extent to which an audience identifies with a festival or a city (and are willing to invest time and money) strongly determines how successful both the festival and the city’s further development will be. Accordingly, festivals are being placed at the heart of strategic development of some cities’ physical and human infrastructures. Festival City - Rotterdam is an urban design study that researches the symbiotic collaboration between festivals and urban development to see how they can forge stronger identities for each by working collaboratively. The specific communities that organise and support festivals in Rotterdam are central in this study’s findings. Community involvement, the visibility of the festival between editions and the specific audience appeal strongly influence how festivals can be used to catalyse the relationship between the social and urban structure of a city. Without the fertile ground provided by a supporting community, a festival will not flower. This chapter will examine this strategy in more depth, using two festival case studies from Rotterdam: the Caribbean Summer in the Afrikaanderwijk and an example of urban theatre on the Coolsingel. It will also consider Soundpiece, an ongoing project on the Schouwburgplein. These case studies and their relationship with Rotterdam’s urban development plans are described below.