The light is coming back! Every day is now noticeably longer in Umeå, the cold has been paralyzing (-23 F the other day) but it’s stunningly beautiful as the low sun is making tall blue shadows on the sparkling snow, promising that spring isn’t that far away after all.
I was surprised to see the building cranes moving, in spite of the cold. It’s pretty quite though down at the waterfront. It will still be some time before the main attraction down there, Kulturväven - the new building for cultural arts, is to get started. The project has been stalled by appeals, preservers fighting developers. Democracy is a wonderful process, which can be as constructive as it can be annoying.
Important projects need a solid base. In the community as well as at the physical sight. And in both my cities some basic foundational work needs to be done before the big waterfront projects can take place. Seattle has to replace the sea wall protecting downtown from the powerful sound. In Umeå it’s essential to refurbish the riverfront; the streams of the water is a violent force.
So, what about the foundation in the community? Well, the City of Umeå did invite to a number of public meetings. There is a problem though: those meetings tend to draw the same group of people, quite a small crowd, mostly former city officials and well known preservers. The City webpage about Kulturväven http://www.umea.se/kulturvaven is kind of silent. It’s possible to put in a question and you are promised an answer, but the form is a bit stiff and not that inviting.
Väven AB, the City and Balticgruppen (The Baltic Group, the main developer in Umeå) joint company, which will be building the new Umeå landmark, has a webpage too, http://www.kulturvaven.se/. It’s a bit more promising. Filmed interviews with, among others, the architect makes it more alive, there is a web cam at the building sight and we are invited to ask questions via email. It still feels a bit dumb though.
Seattle is making a very ambitious try, involving the public in the design of the new waterfront. The webpage http://waterfrontseattle.org/ greats us with the inviting and challengingly statement “Its your waterfront, help us shape it, come join us”. The calendar tells us not only about the public meetings, but finance, stewardship and executive committee meetings. There has been surveys addressed to the public, and I must say the questions give the impression the City and The Central Waterfront Committee really want to know how the inhabitants of Seattle would like their waterfront in the future. A series of public discussions on the subject takes place this winter, and the project presentations by James Corner of James Corner Field Operations are open, draw a big crowd and I can watch them in Sweden on the webpage. I get the impression the City and The Central Waterfront Committee intend making the whole process as transparent as possible.
Because of this, I was very surprised finding that my Seattle friends (who are all very engaged in the city and the Seattle community) didn’t know about these efforts at all! In fact, I was better informed than they are! Asking about it they all gave me the same answer: “There is a fatigue among Seattleites about the waterfront. And if anything is going on down there, it’s all covered by the ever ongoing discussions about the Viaduct and the tunnel.”
I would say that fatigue has been a wet blanket in Umeå too, when it comes to the waterfront. But the sleepy state of mind is now exchanged by equal parts hope and skepticism. The cultural arts communities were invited for discussions about the contents of Kulturväven. Some are now happy, others disappointed, and the inside of the building is going to be decided on in June. June is also the month when a strategic plan for the design of the Seattle waterfront is going to be delivered to the mayor. So, will the future be built on solid foundations?
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