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Creative Urban Milieus

Historical Perspectives on Culture, Economy, and the City

Erschienen am 13.05.2008, 1. Auflage 2008
Bibliografische Daten
ISBN/EAN: 9783593385471
Sprache: Englisch
Umfang: 435 S., 22 s/w Fotos
Format (T/L/B): 3 x 20.9 x 14 cm
Einband: Paperback

Beschreibung

Ob Kunstbetrieb oder Modebranche - die 'kreativen Milieus' sind derzeit Leitbilder für eine neue Form der Urbanität, bei der kulturelle Entwicklung und wirtschaftliches Wachstum eine produktive Verbindung eingehen. Welche kreativen Milieus es seit der Frühen Neuzeit gab und welche Rolle sie im Wirtschaftsgefüge jeweils spielten, zeigen die Beiträge dieses Bandes unter anderem für Manchester, London, Venedig, Berlin und Hamburg. Erst der historische und internationale Vergleich ermöglicht es, die Wechselwirkung von Kultur und Ökonomie in der Stadtentwicklung heute und in Zukunft angemessen zu beurteilen.

Autorenportrait

Martina Heßler ist Professorin für Kultur- und Technikgeschichte an der Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach. Clemens Zimmermann ist Professor für Kultur- und Mediengeschichte an der Universität des Saarlandes.

Leseprobe

As we have just observed, prior to the mid-nineteenth century Manchester was not noted for its cultural life. Even W. Cooke Taylor, generally taken to be an apologist both for Manchester and the factory system, reported in 1842: "It is essentially a place of business, where pleasure is unknown as a pursuit, and amusements scarcely rank as secondary considerations" (Cooke Taylor 1842: 10). In this regard Manchester was little different from other towns and cities outside London, where polite culture ranked relatively low in the order of priorities behind business, often being confined to particular groups (the gentry, urban notables) and times of year (festivals, the "season") (Borsay 1999; Money 1977). At Taylor's time of writing there existed nevertheless an established network of institutions and associations of polite culture in Manchester. They included scientific and learned societies, concerts and assemblies, subscription libraries, social clubs and art exhibitions (Kargon 1977; Seed 1988; Stancliffe 1938). More dense still, of course, was the undergrowth of institutions of popular culture, from the "free and easy" to the temperance association (Hewitt 1996; Joyce 1994). In 1849 the journalist Angus Bethune Reach noted how the streets around the Apollo music saloon were filled with the sounds of itinerant musicians, organ grinders and ballad singers, while "the melodious burst of a roaring chorus, surging out of the open windows of the Apollo, resounds loudly above the whole conglomeration of street noises" (Kidd 1996: 52). However, if we restrict our perspective to bourgeois or "high" culture before the 1850s, then three characteristics are evident. Firstly, the associations of culture were private or semi-private: access could only be obtained by election and/or subscription. Of the Gentleman's Concerts in the early 1850s the musician and impresario Charles Hallé observed in his Autobio-graphy, they were "an exclusive society. None but subscribers were admitted and no tickets sold" (Kennedy 1972: 138). Secondly, such bodies were non profit-making, albeit separate from rather than opposed to the market. Thirdly, the majority of cultural associations tended to have no dedicated building or physical space; meetings were peripatetic, taking place in hotels or even pubs. Especially in its more respectable and bourgeois manifestations, then, culture remained for the most part a private and exclusive affair. Hence Richard Cobden's celebrated attack on Manchester's unreformed government in 1838, in the name of the "shopocracy", extended from the city's political to its social and cultural institutions: "The tone which has so long prevailed in the government of the town has naturally enough pervaded all our institutions [.] and the retailer would find it, probably, almost as difficult to obtain admission to our clubs and our concerts, as he might to obtain the privilege of entré to the Queen's court" (Cobden 1838). Consequently, it is difficult to speak of a cultural economy in anything more than a very partial and limited sense in Manchester in the early and mid-nineteenth century. From the early 1860s, however, this situation began to change. The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, the fine arts equivalent of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and attracting over a million visitors, is often taken to be the catalyst but its effects were transitory (Finke 1985). More important locally, and arising out of the Art Treasures event, was the foundation of the Hallé concerts which were to become a regular feature of Manchester cultural life by the 1860s. The Hallé was the first permanent, professional orchestra in Britain and its annual season of grand concerts, held during the winter months, rapidly became "one of the institutions of Manchester", as a local periodical put it in 1868, a miraculous conjunction of high culture and high society: the concert hall on Hallé night was reported to be "the most gorgeous and dazzl

Inhalt

Acknowledgements Introduction: Creative Urban Milieus - Historical Perspectives on Culture, Economy, and the City Martina Heßler/Clemens Zimmermann 1 Cultural Economies in Early Modern Times The Productivity of the City in the Early Modern Era: The Book and Art Trade in Venice and London Clemens Zimmermann Invention, Innovation, and the "Creative Milieu" in Urban Britain: The Long Eighteenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Cultural Economy Peter Borsay 2 The Nineteenth and Twentieth Century: The Question of Anticipation of Today''s Cultural Economies "How Manchester is Amused": The Cultural Economy of the Industrial City, 1860-1920 Simon Gunn Advertisers, Commercial Artists, and Photographers in Twentieth Century Hamburg Sandra Schürmann Life on Stage: Grand Hotels as Urban Interzones around 1900 Habbo Knoch Anticipations of the New Urban Cultural Economy: Fashion and the Transformation of London''s West End, 1955-1975 Christopher Breward/David Gilbert Port Culture: Maritime Entertainment and Urban Revitalisation, 1950-2000 Jörn Weinhold 3 The Role of Cultural Policy: City Images, Media, and the Cultural Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century "Queen of the Arts" - Exhibitions, Festivals, and Tourism in Fascist Venice, 1922-1945 Jan Andreas May Economic Effects of Urban Cultural Policy in the Interwar Period in France and Germany Thomas Höpel The Attractions of Place: The Making of Urban Tourism, 1860-1914 Jill Steward Urban Creativity and Popular Music in Europe since the 1970s:Representation, Materiality, and Branding Giacomo Bottà 4 Scientific Creative Milieus in the Twentieth Century Science Cities, Creativity, and Urban Economic Effects Martina Heßler Helsinki - Examples of Urban Creativity and Innovativeness Marjatta Hietala What is the City but the People? Creative Cities beyond the Hype Gert-Jan Hospers 5 Creative Milieus in the Late Twentieth and the Twentyfirst Century and the Question of Failure Creative Milieus: Concepts and Failures Birgit Metzger Flourishing Cultural Production in Economic Wasteland: Three Ways of Making Sense of a Cultural Economy in Berlin at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century Alexa Färber Authors

Schlagzeile

Kulturökonomie der Städte