Cultural strategies for cities
A strong cultural brand shapes the city and the place brand. We support the cultural strategy process in your city.
The challenge
Highly political, diverse, influential: managing culture as a USP
A city is full of culture(s) – high culture and subculture, everyday culture and lifestyle. We at Stadtmanufaktur subscribe to UNESCO’s broad concept of culture and recognize the complexity of “culture” that shapes a city.
As experts for strategy development and place branding, we also see the forces of influence that affect the urban cultural fabric: subsidies for selected venues, dominant district culture, overpowering cultural drivers versus alternative cultural scenes.
We know: Creating a coherent cultural strategy for a city is at least as complex as the concept of culture itself. How do you balance the structure of culture(s), where is the focus, who is involved and how? Cultural strategy is a highly political process – with clear goals: Creating identity, strengthening the city’s profile, connecting society.
Culture shapes the cityscape and coexistence – as demonstrated by cultural beacons such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
In its broadest sense, culture can be seen as the totality of the unique spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional aspects that characterize a society or social group. This includes not only art and literature, but also ways of life, basic human rights, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
UNESCO concept of culture, defined in 1982 at the World Conference on Cultural Policy
“The cultural strategy is a major steering element of urban policy. You can’t take culture seriously enough as a driving force.“
Isabell Köster, expert in cultural strategy at the Stadtmanufaktur
Our approach
Identifying new opportunities, managing claims
We develop a cultural strategy alongside your city – closely linked to what your city stands for or wants to stand for. In doing so, we focus on the enormous potential of culture: culture is part of the city’s DNA, it is an expression of urban society, it opens up new opportunities in destination marketing, in the event strategy and for the city brand itself.
In other words, a successful cultural strategy results in a cultural brand with positive interactions for the entire city. It is also always about assigning individual stakeholder groups a role in the new overall concept and communicating their benefits to them. Therefore Cultural strategy:
- Set priorities,
- to identify new paths and collaborations,
- Control mechanisms and processes develop,
- Manage stakeholders and roles,
- Exemplify openness, courage and foresight and
- Strengthen those responsible with arguments.
What makes us special?
Our cultural strategy experts, Julia Staron and Isabell Köster, do not operate on a strategic meta-level, but from a practical perspective. Both experts come from the cultural sector and combine their knowledge with their expertise in place branding and urban policy.
“We know the needs of cultural professionals. We know how hearts beat in culture. At the same time, we know what drives the city. This combination is our strength.”
Isabell Köster and Julia Staron, project managers for cultural strategy at the Stadtmanufaktur
Our way of working
The cultural map of your city – use it strategically
A city that knows its cultural character and its strengths can use these to its advantage in the competition between cities. That much is clear. But how do you get from the big picture to a concrete strategy?
We usually start with a comprehensive analysis of the city. This is because in many of our projects we find that there is often a lack of overview. This step creates a valuable “database of urban culture” for many of our clients, which they also use in the long term.
Based on the analysis, we identify predetermined breaking points and design mechanisms and processes for strategic control. All of this results in a catalog of recommendations – our strategy recommendation.
If you succeed in combining the needs of culture, politics and co. in a cultural strategy, the forces will multiply – in the interests of your city. This is the path we want to take with you step by step.
The Stadtmanufaktur competencies:
Building blocks of our strategy development
Basic analysis: The big picture
We analyze the status quo in your city – including an identity check, stakeholder map and analysis of the current cultural landscape (businesses, funding, sponsors, etc.).
Workshops and stakeholder management
We work with you to identify relevant stakeholders and their needs. If required, with workshops, guideline-based one-on-one meetings or similar.
Organizational chart and process development
We identify roles, resources and processes: How are they currently, how can they be improved in order to implement the new strategy with its priorities?
Concrete catalog of recommendations
The findings from the basic analysis, discussions and conceptual design result in a comprehensive catalog of recommendations = our strategy recommendation for your city.
Our success stories:
Strategies for the future
Recklinghausen receives financial support from a funding program for the Recklinghausen-Süd district. We support the development of city center management and stakeholder management and accompany the process with strategic communication.
Development of a strength-based city brand: In cooperation with Brandmeyer Markenberatung, we are moderating the city brand process for the city of Siegen.
The city of Koblenz is very successful in terms of tourism. This leads to a high utilization of public spaces. An event strategy including a catalog of event criteria now serves as a management tool to influence the quality, number and content of events.