Temporal Urbanism (essay)

Urban Histories Module - MA Urban Design 2011 - Sheffield School of Architecture

In an essay concerning the folk festival Fasnacht in Basel, Christine Macy considers such an
event, that occupies public and private spaces all over the city for a week, as 'a form of urban
design through public programming – call it temporary urbanism'.1 For Macy, the Fasnacht
festival is an expression of the relationships between different groups of citizens, their
cultural and political differences played out among the city's most intimate alleys and public
places. She traces these relationships and their expression since its medieval beginnings. This
inspired me to look at Sheffield's own current temporary and temporal urbanism, the events
and festivals that constitute it and the spaces they occupy. In this essay I will ask what are the
drivers of this temporal urbanism and what do they express.

In the last two years Sheffield has seen the rise of a home grown music festival; Tramlines.
Unlike the city's other music festivals (and other music festivals nationally) it is based in the
city centre. All of it performances are free and spread across over 50 venues that include
pubs, clubs and three outdoor stages in the public realm. Tramlines lasts for three days, and in
2010 it is estimated that 125,000 people attended.2 Such huge numbers easily occupy not only
the designated venues but also the streets and squares in between. Music Festivals have
become common cultural events in their out-of-town/middle-of-no-where form, so to have
this atmosphere transposed to the everyday city creates a very special atmosphere.

The main stage is on Devonshire Green around which an 'arena' is created by cordoning off
the neighbouring car-park and the west end of Division St. Entry to the arena is free but the
large numbers create a queue that runs along Division St toward the centre. This intensity of
people itself adds to the atmosphere as can be seen in figure 1. Several private venues on or
just off Divison St make it the heart of the festival, while at the eastern end, on Barker's Pool
is secondary stage. A smaller stage is found in the Peace Gardens (fig. 2)

The organisers are a private company, but they are strongly supported by the City Council.
The total cost of the festival in 2010 was £150,000, with £135,000 of funding coming from
the Council, although this is expected to be reduced as the festival becomes more self-
sufficient. The Council considers the investment good value as they report that the city
centre's businesses recorded an addition of £2.25 million in income over the three days. This
is in contrast to the expected income during the time of year in which many businesses
struggle due to the exodus of students over the summer. Local and independent businesses
especially reported that the festival kept them trading through this period.3

Another of Sheffield's major events that temporarily transforms it's centre is

FrightNight.4 Billed as a 'mass promenade event', 40,000 people attend this 'Britain's Biggest
Halloween Party'. Staged on a Sunday from 4 – 8pm, the main public spaces are used; Fargate,
Barker's Pool, Orchard Square, Millennium Square and the Winter Gardens. Roads are closed
around Fargate; Surrey Street and Leopold Street. While attractions include street theatre and
celebrity lookalikes; Harry Potter and Cybermen, the greatest spectacle is the 'audience'
themselves who all dress up in Halloween costume.

These two events are not based upon a historic tradition such as the Fastnach festival in Basel
described by Macy. Rather than being an expression of the population's character and
identities, Sheffield's events are part of a different tradition, engaged in not by citizens but by
local authorities with different aims and objectives.

A 're-discovery' of European city centres had been growing since the early 1970s, where local
authorities aimed to bring their populations back in from the suburbs by staging cultural
events and improving the infrastructure that would make them feel welcome;
pedestrianisation, better street lighting, public transport. Their objective was to re-establish
the centre as a stage for 'civic identity and public sociability'.5

The majority of British cities did not follow this continental example until later. By the 90s
Sheffield was in danger of becoming a doughnut city; with rings of development around an
empty decaying centre. As part of the British Urban Renaissance the City Council published
the City Centre Master-plan in 2000 setting out the strategies for physical improvements
within a financial agenda. In 2008, with the centre transformed an updated City Centre
Master-plan was produced that continued to link the quality of urban design with economic
growth:

'In order to become more competitive, the city centre needs to increase the level of
investment and visitors. These are essential elements in developing a set of attractive city
products and an improved quality of life [...] The Master-plan includes a number of proposals
to increase footfall and activity and to attract and retain visitors. The most successful drivers
to increase market demand will come from a growth in the visitor economy based on an event
strategy and a clearly differentiated cultural/ leisure offer'.6

In 2009 an Economic Master-plan for the city was also produced, which developed the theme
of an strategic events programme:

'Cities are increasingly using events to improve their image, stimulate urban development and
attract visitors and investment. Events are great catalysts for not only attracting visitors but
increasing their overall expenditure and dwell time in the city. They can create international
profile, and competitive advantage in relation to other cities'.7
The council obviously has clear priorities in using the city as a platform for economic
regeneration. During Fright Night in 2008, a survey of 100 people had the following results:
88% said they had come to the centre especially for this event. 93% said they generally enjoy
visiting the city centre, and 87% said that they would recommend the city centre as a good
place to visit.8 Apart from the figures themselves, the fact that the council is keen to quantify
the people's attitude toward the city centre demonstrates their focus.

When interviewed, the city centre's Events Manager said the council is keen to work with
companies staging events that can showcase the city and increase footfall.9 Their role is to
'allow partners to be creative without getting held back by bureaucracy and
procedures'.10 However, she also said that despite the statement in the Master-plan, there was
no overarching Events Strategy in terms of the types of events that should be pursued to fulfil
its aims.

At the same time, I would argue that the city is already embracing the 'experience economy'.
This is a business marketing concept which argues that greater value can be gained from a
product or service if it is consumed within an 'experience' that the customer will pay for. This
concept was formulated by Joseph Pine in 1999, and could be used to explain the way cities
were marketing themselves as containers of particular 'experiences'.

Of course, cities like New York, Paris and London don't have to market themselves in this
way, they are already synonymous with certain images and feelings.11 In 2000 Copenhagen
created an accounting system to establish the economic value of the experiences it could
offer; 'this should be done by first making inventories of the city's potential experience capital
because the future is an experience economy in which people fulfil themselves and invent
new needs'.12

Smaller cities such as Sheffield are competing with a much broader range of cities nationally
and across the globe. Sheffield's city form and architectural heritage undoubtedly create a
specific ambiance and urban experience, but this alone cannot compete with York's
mediaeval lanes or Leeds' Victorian arcades. A city like Sheffield has to organise its own
experiences and events.

If Sheffield has an experience economy it needs an experience infrastructure. This view point

was supported by an interview with the Council's head Landscape Architect. He said that all
the city's public spaces had been designed with the brief to allow events of different sizes to
be held.13 For example the fountain at the centre of the Peace Gardens was designed not only
for children to be able to run through, but so that it could also be turned off and a stage could
be placed there instead. Tudor Square, has been designed with particularly smooth paving to
allow performances or dance to take place without staging or platforms, and at the same time
leaves space in one corner for a giant TV screen which is used when international snooker
tournaments take place inside the Crucible Theatre.

But there are criticisms of such an approach, as Tracy Metz explains; 'witness the birth of
the Event City. In historic city centres, every charming street and picturesque square is
pressed into service as a podium where an event can be organised'. She also expresses
concern over the way that public space used as an generator of income; 'increasingly becomes
a commodity, [...] a street or square becomes a temporary place that can hardly distinguish
itself from the interior of a mall'.14 A dominating commercial/corporate presence at an event
can easily blur the division between private and publicly owned space.

Metz goes on to describe the Event City as a tool of city branding. Sheffield's aim is
undoubtedly to improve its national and international profile: While Lofgren agrees that 'a
city is not a vessel that can be filled with symbolic messages or cultural
connotations'.15 Indeed, Sheffield may look at Bradford, one of its competitors, and its
successful Mela Festival. Although it is subsidised and supported by its council, Charles
Landry notes that it is a vital expression of the city's Asian community, significantly boosting
their cultural confidence and improving race relations. It is a good example of a nationally
recognised event that has grown from a grass roots activity.

Perhaps Sheffield could look elsewhere to find a less managed event that expresses its
temporal urbanism. I would argue that there are other activities within the city's cultural life
that can be seen in this way, although they are not organised. 'Friday night out on West St' is
an event that does not feature as part of the city's brand, but has been as equally part of the
city's temporal urbanism. Although its not a festival, it is a riot of colour and noise that
colonises public and private space for a short period. Middle class students mix with
Sheffield's working class, and although it represents a mono-culture of contemporary music
and fashion, it is one that has been part of the city's history since it began.

A more recent temporal urban phenomenon that Sheffield experiences is the movement of the
student population itself. This creates a city of two very tangible states; empty and full. In the
city centre business slows down in July, bars and clubs become quiet, and student
accommodation blocks shut down. In some of the suburbs whole terraced streets are cleared
out. And then in September, like in spring, they are re-populated again.

Finally, with a broader idea of how Sheffield expresses its temporal urbanism, Landry notes
that even 'the urban renewal process can itself become a spectacle'.16 This is surely a
continuous event that Sheffield can claim to excel in, and could be another of its temporal
urbanisms. As a friend of mine once remarked (while negotiating some never ending road
works); “Sheffield eh?, it'll be great when its finished.”17 This ironic one-liner could only
come from a local who had witnessed his city's spluttering transformation for too long, and
was resigned not to wait for the completed state but to enjoy the 'event' that is its constant
change. Of course the process of regeneration and development includes elements of hype,
expectation, tension and release. It may not be an 'experience' that the authorities can market
or even control, but citizens are participants within it, actively or not. Gitte Marling quotes
Zygmunt Bauman as stating 'City and city change are almost synonymous. Change is the
quality of city life and the mode of urban existence'. 18