CCCB Trajectory

Strategic plan: nine notes for a tenth anniversary

NINE NOTES FOR A TENTH ANNIVERSARY

Josep Ramoneda
Director of the CCCB

On 25 February 1994, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona opened its doors to the public for the first time. A few days previously, the fire in the Liceu opera house had symbolised the ghost of the Olympic hangover, just when we thought we'd shaken it off. The city needed to believe in itself again. And we people of Barcelona had to prove that we were still good at something. Urban culture was the territory chosen to concentrate our skills. It was up to us to prove that Barcelona could get ahead in terms of culture. The CCCB was created to show that it was possible to produce culture without complexes, and it was bold enough to challenge the Pompidou or the Barbican with budgets fifteen or twenty times smaller. Through the doors of the CCCB, Catalonia was consolidating an idea of culture based not on national identity but on urban tradition - our own and that of other people.

After ten years, Barcelona's range of cultural products is much larger, and this allows - in fact obliges - us to reinforce the features that identify us, and these I propose to summarise below in the nine ideas that have emerged from our experience over the last ten years:

1. A cultural centre is a medium, a space for communication, with the function of providing a link with the academic world, independent creation and the city's people, which makes it a public space.

2. The city as a theme at the CCCB, but one that is more than the city of urban planners and architects, has to enable us to develop a humanism of the urban phenomenon which I think is the true strength of this Centre. The series of exhibitions 'A city and a writer' is just one example.

3. In the course of these years of work, this humanism has encountered new questions needing answers. The impact of the globalisation process in the urban world is one such, and this is why we have created Across Cities, but there is also the impact on the culture of cyber-, bio- and ecofunctions that have come to us from the world of science. And this must provide the motivation for some of our work in the future.

4. The borders of cultural disciplines are becoming increasingly indistinct. It is therefore up to us to look for new hybrid spaces and approaches from many different perspectives, and to look at things from new viewpoints.

5. The success of a public institution like the CCCB must be based on quality, a degree of eclecticism, attention to a broad cross section of the public and singularity in its approach. What makes us singular is the fact that people see things differently when they've been through here.

6. The best way to guarantee the quality of a project is to ensure that it responds to a real need, that it answers questions that are vital to its further progress. The straightforward presentation of works of art or cultural artefacts is not a cultural project. The question of meaning is still a decisive one.

7. This is why we are obliged to present a new angle on things, all the more so given the competitive scene I describe above: the new angle of an effort to change viewpoints and shake up the clichés and commonplaces that surround culture in a country that, between the forces of nationalistic orthodoxy and avant-garde observance, is held fast by political correctness.

8. The CCCB is in an excellent situation to form a bridge between emerging cultures and so-called traditional culture. Countries in the East, Africa and Latin America are strategic priorities.

9. Despite the differences in budget, we at the CCCB and many other Catalan institutions are in a position to compete unashamedly with the world's leading cultural institutions. We have to develop a little Catalan cosmopolitanism.

TENTH ANNIVERSARY: Interview to Josep Ramoneda

El Pais, 19 February 2004 (499 KB)
Manuel Ramos

Avui, 23 February 2004 (110 KB)
Montse Frisach

La Vanguardia, 24 February 2004 (195 KB)
Teresa Sesé

El Punt, 25 February 2004 (346 KB)
Jaume Vidal

El Pais, 27 February 2004 (140 KB)
Catalina Serra

El Mundo, 28 February 2004 (474 KB)
Marie-Claire Uberquoi

El Punt, 28 February 2004 (334 KB)
Montse Majench

Expansión, 2 March 2004 (270 KB)
Pilar Riaño