The neoliberal mode of governance in cultural grands projetsin European Cties: A critical analysis of Oslos Opera House in the Fjord City

Abstract

The development of cultural grands projets has been a trend in European cities during the upward cycle of the last capitalist phase up until the global economic crisis. In the spatial context of northern Europe, this research analyzes the role of an emblematic, publicly-funded cultural facility, Oslo's Opera House, within a larger urban project (Fjord City), and the influence of the orientation and mode of governance used in the urban transformation produced in the surrounding area. A critical qualitative analysis of the planning and semi-structured interviews with the main urban stakeholders made it possible to characterize the development of the project, including the role of these actors and the interactions between them. In this way, this research explains the implementation of a mode of governance and a process of neo-liberal urban renewal in an eccentric Oslo space, in one of the countries renowned for its welfare state model. This article demonstrates how the interactions between public and private agents have become more flexible and have intensified in this new mode of governance, and the legitimacy generated by the execution of the Opera for developing a strategy of urban marketing, the re-concentration of the main cultural facilities on the waterfront, and an urban renewal process focused on the attraction of transnational capital.