Working with the past, re-discovering cities of Central and Eastern Europe: cultural urbanism and new representations of modernist urban areas

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how global processes that promote the homogenizing of urban cultural space influence the perception and representation of the past in Central and Eastern European (CEE) cities. Cultural urbanism perceives all urban heritage merely as a scene for creative experiments and new cultural industries. In CEE cities, characterized by a complex and contested history, a special attitude toward the past appears to be one of a typical feature. This situation poses a serious challenge to how global cultural urban processes play out in various regional contexts. It is evident that the dominant view on creative urbanism held within established neoliberal theoretical frameworks is too narrow to explain all its effects for the cities of CEE. How do new cultural projects focusing on the revitalization of urban heritage represent the complex pasts of CEE cities? Are they transforming their experience and emotional resonance? Do they even leave any kind of space for this past? Or, maybe, is this past disappearing in new discourses and symbolic meanings? In this paper, these questions are explored based on case studies showcasing the use of the 1920s and 1960s modernist architectural heritage in CEE cities.