Book Description

Through a year of travel supported by the Rotch Travelling Fellowship, a total of 35 examples of performing-arts-based architecture - spanning almost 240 years of civic metamorphosis - was observed in 28 autonomous cities using Europe's crowded and competitive urban network as a point of reference and comparative analysis. The intention is to investigate the results of such completed projects that encounter distinctive urban scales, cultural settings, and political footing - with focus on engagement in urban regeneration strategies (from localized communities to entire city districts) and the geopolitical desire to popularize in a globalized society. Of the selected observations, 16 were chosen as case studies that spotlight the planning and construction efforts in a 'post-Bilbao' period (from 1997- today) - representing almost 6 million square feet of new cultural space and over $5 billion in capital investment.