Heritage Opportunities/threats within Mega-Events in Europe (HOMEE) project realised jointly by partners from Italy, Cyprus, Poland and the United Kingdom, was awarded with the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2022 in the category of Research. Our conversation gives a closer insight into this project, asking the major question: What can we learn from HOMEE?
Participants of the discussion
Davide Ponzini is Professor of Urban Planning at Politecnico di Milano and director of the TAU-Lab. He has also been a visiting scholar at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, and Sciences Po Paris and Visiting Professor at TU Munich. His research activity focuses on planning theory, urban and cultural policy, and contemporary architecture. He is co-author (with the photographer Michele Nastasi) of Starchitecture, and co-editor (with Harvey Molotch) of The New Arab Urban: Gulf Cities of Wealth, Ambition, and Distress.
Dr Franco Bianchini is one of the Associate Directors of the Centre for Cultural Value, based at the University of Leeds. He is also Visiting Professor at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, and a member of the Council of Founders and of the Board of the Fitzcarraldo Foundation, Turin. His publications and research interests concern topics including: the role of cultural resources and interculturalism in urban innovation and regeneration; European Cities/Capitals of Culture, and urban cultural strategies in the context of changes in contemporary political cultures.
Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga, adjunct professor at the UNESCO Chair for Heritage and Urban Studies in the Cracow University of Economics. Her research interests include the potential of culture in urban development, the impact of European Capitals of Culture on the host cities and urban resilience. For a number of years she worked with the International Cultural Centre in Kraków and its Research Institute for European Heritage where the HOMEE project was conducted.