Ravenna european city of culture 2019?

Whole of Romagna makes bid for European title – with one possibly fatal flaw

After having been three times the capital of the ancient world, Ravenna is now bidding to be "European Capital of Culture" in 2019, the year in which the title will be assigned to a city in Italy.

Six Italian cities have now been shortlisted for the honour: Cagliari, Lecce, Matera, Perugia, Ravenna and Siena

The reasons for Ravenna’s bid are not just the city’s outstanding cultural and monumental heritage, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and not just its cultural production of international caliber, says the city.

First and foremost, they say, Ravenna is bidding because it considers itself able to represent Italy in an exemplary and effective manner. Its size, history, artistic treasures, the Dante legacy and its relationship with the sea outline a model of city that ideally reflects the Italian identity.

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Download pdf brochure about Ravenna’s bid 

And, it’s not just the city – Ravenna’s bid for European Capital of Culture is backed by the whole of the Romagna region including the Province of Ravenna, the municipalities of Rimini, Forlì, Cesena, Faenza and its surrounding towns, Cervia, Russi, and the Union of municipalities of Southern Romagna. Romagna, in fact, forms a unique regional package, a compendium of history and experiences.

In the past, Ravenna, and the area, has produced artistic visions that are milestones in the history in Europe , and today, through the Mosaics of Culture project, it aims to propose new visions.  "Achieving contemporary relevance", they say  "requires comparing a series of issues crucial to the region’s future, such as hospitality and cultural diversity, conflict and its possible arrangements, the relationship with water and the wider world, creativity and new technology, transformations and "doing together".

Ravenna has also developed a unique ‘Fiveways’ project for the bid, which includes:

1. From Threshold to Threshold: 
2. The dance of opposites: 
3. Toward the open sea: 
4. Imagining the imaginary: 
5. We transform, therefore we are:

There is, however one important issue that has not yet even been mentioned in the context of the bid. Ravenna is part of a plain adjoining the Adriatic Sea. The city’s elevation is just 4 metres. It is bounded by the hills of Romagna and the Apennines, and much work was done by the Romans some 1,500 years ago to reclaim Ravenna’s surrounding fenland from the sea. Given current climate change and sea rise assumptions, by the end of the century, Ravenna may be an Italian Atlantis – a wonderful cultural heritage, an ex-European City of Culture, but accessible to divers only.

Maybe it is worthwhile looking at this aspect of the bid to identify if environmental future-proofing could be included – thus making the bid not only an extraordinary contribution to European culture, but an environmentally sustainable one too. And above water-level in a hundred years time.

Valere Tjolle @ValereTjolle [email protected]

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