Impact of multipurpose culture spaces on postindustrial european cities

Abstract

From the beginning of human history and civilization, the meaningful architectural pieces have been widely visited by the millions of tourists, frequently called themselves piligrims, merchands or conquerors. Even though they have been not aware of the fact, that they were really tourists, they have often underlined their appreciation to the architecture of visited or conquered foreign cities, in the documents which we can find in the libraries and archives all over the world. In the past centuries the most prestigious buildings and urban spaces were usually connected with the manifestation of civic or religious power and they were those, which have been admired the most. In the era of globalization, situation have changed. The democracy and transparency of the civic power together with the simplicity of sacral architecture have moved the interest of the tourists to the other public objects. The historical monuments and urban masterpieces are still the most attractive for the millions of tourists. But to attract more people, the post-industrial European cities have needed to invent new urban attractions and create new monuments. The ones without the remarkable historical heritage would like also benefit from the mass tourism, and now- they can. Nowadays, that are the museums, operas and other public buildings connected with culture, together with new kind of public spaces, which brings an enormous amount of tourists to the European cities. For the humans of post-industrial civilization, the single object has become already not enough to be attracted by. Multipurpose complexes of culture objects, hybrid culture buildings and public spaces devoted to the presentation of art and the achievements of civilization appeared in numerous European cities within the last twenty-five years. Those complexes strongly contributed to the revitalization of some degraded areas and districts and to the touristic promotion of the cities where they had come into existence. In the paper, the new attempt of such a complex, which have appeared recently in one of the major Poland cities, on the background of the most prominent European example will be presented, to help formulate the new theoretical reflexion.