A playful new direction for urbanism and architecture in France, from John Thackera in Icon magazine. Perhaps rather than building expensive architectural icons like Gehry's Bilbao museum - which according to the statistics, visitors tend to only visit once - cities should fund 'les arts de la rue': street-based carnivals and festivals, which emphasize participation from the spectator. The memories are better (and cheaper) than a drop-jaw wander round an architect's fantasy made real. And there's a vision behind this too, according to Jean-Marie Songy, director of the Aurillac festival - it exemplifies what he calls the "open city - the utopian ideal of a city as an open stage that supports freedom of expression". (Nice to note, too, that there's a Scottish town already ahead of the game in this - see Big In Falkirk).
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