Media discourses always consider Vienna as a »cultural city«. This study shows how such a perception is skilfully shaped by political constructions of cultural imaginaries in and of the city. The book unveils how simplistic cognitive interpretations of culture not only define an unquestioned, reductionist idea of the city's cultural character – it also explains how these imaginaries influence the recent urban development practice in one of Europe's globalizing cities.
Contents
Cultural Imagineering. A f i r s t encounter | 7
Planning with culture between materiality and meaning | 9
Research approach | 27
Contextualizing urban development. Cities between materiality
and meaning. | 39
A spatial turn: The city as discursive process? | 40
The multi-scalar city: Between local and global | 42
Urban economies in transition: From production to consumption | 48
Pluralization, fragmentation, and an urban revival in a postmodern age | 51
The contested politics of planning. Ideology and power,
accumulation and representation | 57
The changed face of the state: New coalitions, new development goals | 58
New modes of planning: Constructing identity and difference | 63
The political in planning: Contests over accumulation and representation | 69
Linking culture, c i t y , and planning. Entering a cultural era i n
urban development | 77
An agent of change: The salient narratives of culturalization for
capitalization | 83
Culture for representation: Between hegemony and cultural pluralism | 90
Theorizing Cultural Imagineering. Conceptualizing
the discursive regulation of culture-led
place transformation | 95
Empirical research design. De- and reconstructing Cultural
Imagineering in practice | 103
Material context: Vienna's development trajectory | 104
The construction of cultural imaginaries: Critical Discourse Analysis | 105
Triangulation and hidden information: Narrative interviews | 109
Confronting discourse with material practice | 110
Contextualizing "Cultural Vienna". Retracing the cultural
development trajectory | 113
Morphology, urban structures and spatial development | 113
Vienna's socio-economic development path | 117
Urban politics and the culture of planning | 119
The institutional setting | 123
The strategic layer: Vienna's politics of planning | 127
Strategically approaching culture: Vienna between hub and heritage | 133
Karlsplatz: A cultural economy for global tourism | 145
Development background | 145
The discursive construction of Karlsplatz | 149
Materializations of the cultural imaginary | 156
Transformation as hegemonic material practice? | 160
Seestadt Aspern: Cultural symbolism for entrepreneurial
urbanism | 163
Development background | 163
The discursive construction of Seestadt Aspem ] 168
Materializations of the cultural imaginary | 180
Transformation as hegemonic material practice? | 184
Brunnenviertel: Capitalizing on cultural diversity | 187
Development background | 187
The discursive construction of Brunnenviertel | 191
Materializations of the cultural imaginary | 200
Transformation as hegemonic material practice? | 204
Cultural Vienna revisited. Rationales, imaginaries, and
hegemonic practice | 207
Uncerlying rationales of planning the city with culture | 207
Culture-led hegemonic economic and ideological projects [216
Towards a culturized planning practice. Conclusions on Cultural
Imagineering | 225
The Cultural Imagineering of Vienna | 225
Planning for cultural development: Towards a culturized planning practice in
Vienna | 230
List of Figures & Tables | 239
Bibliography | 241