WEAPONS OF MASS ATTRACTION
by Ulf Meyer

Cities want to be important. In their competition for the tourist dollar, media attention, and prominence on the global map, they have discovered a ‘magic’ tool: architecture. The wilder the better seems to be the formula; buildings should look impossible to build to work as instant icons. Today almost any smaller European city wants the Bilbao effect—Bilbao’s model in 1997 of building a spectacular museum, which propelled the city to worldwide fame and star city status, attracting throngs of visitors and tourists till today. Frank O. Gehry not only fulfilled the local government’s idea to turn the run-down rust belt city by the Nervión River into one of the most visited and talked about destinations in southern Europe, but his Guggenheim design has also turned Bilbao into an internationally recognisable city. So popular is the museum that more than 3.5 million people visited the local subsidiary of the New York-based Guggenheim in the first three years alone. Critics sometimes complain about the Guggenheim Museum’s lacklustre collection and exhibitions. But advocates point out that the building itself is seen as art, not just a house for art.

But does the Bilbao effect really work elsewhere? Some cities that tried to copy the effect did not do as well. This is because hiring famous architects is not the sole recipe for success. Take the small West German city of Herford for example, where Gehry was asked to design an almost similarly spectacular museum called MARTa. However, hardly anyone ever visits. Opened in 2005 the museum gets an average of only 300 visitors per day, causing it to bleed almost €1 million every year, which resulted in the museum slashing its exhibition budget. In order to use architecture as a convincing magnet and urban attractor, signature buildings should be used as a starting point for urban renewal rather than as an end in itself.

BATTLE OF THE EUROPEAN CITIES
The competition amongst cities in densely populated Europe is fierce. While they cannot compete with metropolises in East-Asia or other booming regions of the world in terms of size, many of them do provide a high quality of life.

In a ranking done by Mercer Human Resource Consulting Group of the “50 Most Liveable Cities”, it looked at more than 200 cities around the world and compared them according to 30 political, social, economic and ecological factors. In the list Zurich, Geneva, Vienna, Bern, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich were ranked in the top 10, followed closely by Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin. Small seems to be beautiful: The biggest European metropolises Paris and London were not ranked as high. Such competition amongst cities is not just for vanity’s sake. City tourism has become an important economic factor. In Berlin, the self-proclaimed ‘city of architecture’ for example, foreign tourist arrivals rose by 27 percent in 2007. Thus the city needs to make sure that more exciting architectural projects come online to keep tourists interested. While its European neighbours and Americans traditionally were the most important target groups, now the increasingly wealthy Chinese and Russians are the new hype in city tourism. There are 150 museums in Berlin that attract over 11 million visitors every year. According to a study by the Berlin Tourismus Marketing (BTM) 90 percent of visitors travel to the capital city because of the rich cultural offerings. Will the Chinese and Russian Nouveau riche rather go shopping than visit a museum? It remains a question mark to the tourism experts whether they care about contemporary architecture as much as the traditional target groups did.

DOES SIZE MATTER?
Compared to other continents, Europe does not have mega-cities but hundreds of mid-size cities that have a cultural wealth and architectural heritage to show. While London and Paris certainly are the two peaks on the European map, the battle for the third spot is on. Recently Berlin did rather well in trying to overtake Rome, Madrid or other candidates for that spot in terms of city tourism, using architecture to help drive them to the top in a saturated market. The city is very serious about its architectural attractions. Berlin’s openness to unusual architecture has brought in projects by virtually every famous architect in the world. Some critics, however, argue that Berlin like other import-friendly cities is doomed to get “second-class projects by first-class architects” and that heavy import of ideas can hinder the development of local talent. While East-Asian cities traditionally battle it out with the race for the tallest signature skyscraper, in Europe it is largely the cultural arena in which cities aim for good ratings.

THE QUEST FOR UNIQUENESS AND BIG NAMES
Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind are amongst the common names dropped when ambitious clients and/or zealous mayors want to get media and tourist attention. As such, they have become household names. ‘Starchitects’ like them, who made their fame as ‘paper architects’ in the 1980s, tend to build ‘sculptures’ that may have little local reference. While that might horrify urban planners, having a unique, breakout building designed by a prominent architect will earn the city the reputation of being progressive. Renowned architecture firms such as Coop Himmelb(l)au of Vienna, whose designs were previously labelled as radical, have been commissioned to build the new European Central Bank in Frankfurt, arguably one of the most powerful institutions in the Eurozone. Unconventional buildings like Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin—the second most visited museum in the city—is now a must-see, and that has challenged architects to think of ever unusual concepts.

On the other hand, some local architects have stood up against the ‘foreign glamour heroes’ of their profession. They portrayed them as “talking well but building low-quality projects and quickly disappearing back into their jets”. And some critics think that the “honeymoon between architecture and the Zeitgeist” is over. ‘Starchitects’ now have to show that they can manage large-scale construction projects—the era of mega-follies with little function is over and increasing economical and technical pressures sometimes overshadow the aura of grand designs.

EVENTS, EVENTS, EVENTS
Hosting the Olympic Games, a World Exposition, big soccer tournament or get the label “European City of Culture” that the European Union awards to a different city every year is a great way for ambitious mayors to put their cities on the world map. While such events usually usher in a whole range of representative buildings, they seldom leave behind sustainable infrastructures. When investments are channelled into mainly prestigious projects for a big event, the city could be faced with a harsh reality check the ‘year after’ when budgets are strained to maintain the monuments while visitor numbers decline. Weimar, the European cultural capital of 1999 for example, had to close its city museum due to a lack of funding.

URBAN FACELIFTS IN SPAIN
Spain, on the other hand, has demonstrated how investment in the architecture of culture has not only helped its image but also its urban fabric and creative industry. Barcelona’s 1992 Olympic Games not only rejuvenated the whole city but also marked the path for many other cities. The Catalan city wisely transformed its old town, invested heavily in infrastructure and developed a whole new image. Riding on the wave of the Olympics, Barcelona attracted millions of tourists that continue to flock there. And it never gets tired of building one architectural masterpiece after another, and that includes ordinary high-rise office buildings such as the Torre Agbar, a cucumber-shaped 140-metre tall tower designed by Jean Nouvel of France and the new Edificio Fórum by the beach, designed by Herzog and de Meuron of Switzerland. Such monuments have also fuelled the rise of real estate prices in the city.

Spain also hosted the Universal Expo in Seville in 1992, and Zaragoza will host the World Expo this year, which will again introduce iconic buildings in the city, such as the impressive bridge by Zaha Hadid. Valencia is aiming even higher: Its new Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, a new Opera house with a price tag of €300 million in Valencia is the last piece of brick in the centrepiece called the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, a giant 350,000-square metre city of arts and sciences filled with splendid white structures by Santiago Calatrava.

ARCHITECTURE AS A MARKETING TOOLS
Although there has been much discussion on using signature buildings to promote cities and countries, architectural historian Ulrich Schwarz of Hamburg points out that the Bilbao effect has been around for 2,000 years or more. He says: “Great architecture should be the centrepiece of any urban space. Whether religious, governmental, commercial, or cultural, buildings define their cities.” The mentality of “build it and they will come” has created the Eiffel Tower. Special buildings that are out of the ordinary have always been part of cities.

In October 2007 Euromonitor International, an independent provider of business intelligence on industries, countries and consumers, released its ranking of the “Top 150 City Destinations” based on tourist arrivals in 2006. These cities have benefited from investments in infrastructure and architecture as well as development in air travel and so on, all of which have contributed to tourism growth. New architecture has attracted millions of tourists to their airports and hotels, boosting the tourism industry to unprecedented levels. London alone attracted more than 15 million international visitors in 2006 to rank first. In the same year, 27 cities received more than 3 million international arrivals. Budapest and Prague are East European newcomers in the list while historic cities such as Rome, Vienna and Venice all have attracted millions of tourists. Younger cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin and Madrid have also successfully used architecture to attract tourists.

Breakout architecture is a powerful driver that can launch a city or country to worldwide fame. That said, there is no sure-win formula that works for all; only a handful of cities can recreate the Bilbao effect or achieve the global status that the Guggenheim has attained. New structural symbols have emerged but it remains to be seen if they can stand the test of time to become true icons that the rest of the world will remember for years to come.