Bilbao The Guggenheim and Post modern City of Spectacle (01/20/2010)
... The aim of those who commissioned the gallery - while not expressed in these terms - was for economic, cultural, political and social sustainability. Within the theoretical framework of this book, the main vehicle - in many ways like Glasgow - was the mobilisation of embodied, objectified as well as institutional cultural capital locally, nationally, from within Europe and internationally, to realise not only the Gehry gallery but a host of other initiatives. Taking inspiration from other re-developments in Europe and the United States, I will argue that the Guggenheim in Bilbao goes well beyond what critics have derided as a shallow spectacle. Rather, in being a sustainable moblilisation of cultural capital, my suggestion is that, along with Glasgow, Bilbao offers a model Cultural Capital. After first considering the timing, form and location of the Bilbao Guggenheim in terms of sustainable cultural capital, this article will directly address its status as a post-modern archetype....

Glasgow Cultural Tourism and Design (01/20/2010)
... What such a story highlights is the importance of history itself in shaping the city and in laying down a physical and cultural environment on which to build a Cultural Capital. In addition, such a narrative highlights the specific forms the general trends took in this locality: as placement in the British Imperial system generated great wealth, well endowed cultural institutions, magnificent buildings and particular industries with a radical working class politics, but then precipitated a catastrophic decline. As the global centre of ship building and steel making moved first to Europe and thence to Asian countries, Glasgow’s economic and spatial restructuring exacerbated already intense socio-spatial polarisation and created huge challenges around its physical and social decay. It is from this history and from those who sought to address its negative consequences in the 1980s, that the quest to become a Cultural Capital emerged. It was a conscious response and alternative to the perils of socio-spatial economic restructuring and de-industrialisation....