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A 2005 Research Note

 

Planning in Vain?

Taichung City’s Guggenheim Dream in Perspective 2001-2004

 

Thomas Y. Liou

Department of Urban Planning

Feng Chia University

Taichung, Taiwan 407

yhliou@fcu.edu.tw

2005.10

 

..…the Guggenheim Bilbao was a specific creation that resulted from special historical, social and political circumstances and should only seen as such. Its uncritical replication could only produce indifferent clones, which would not only be deprived of any originality but would also perpetuate the misuse of art and of the museums that host it. (Banitopoulou, 2001, p. 12)

 

Introduction

 

Flagship projects are often seen by local leaders as magic to urban ills. Those products with international recognition are especially treasured by keen politicians as key to global recognition and business connection.

 

This is a story of how a third-tiered city strives to attract an internationally famed culture facility to boost her fame and economy. For the past four years, the city of Taichung, Taiwan has worked fiercely to convince the New York-based Solomon Guggenheim Foundation to build its Asian branch in Taichung. In the process, the cost and benefit issue and site selection process have stirred up national and local political elites and ended up with an empty dream.

 

The National Context

 

Taiwan is an urban society active in international trade and global connections, while without much international recognition due to the tensions between Taiwan and China on the issues of separate national sovereignty and unity. Post-war Taiwan’s economic growth relied heavily on international trade and continuous advancement of technological development. As a result, Taiwan’s society is well connected with multinational corporations and global market in the economic sphere. However, there has been few, if any, presence of foreign establishments in the social and political spheres. For example, except some hospitality chain hotels and restaurants, Taiwan society has yet accumulated much experience in getting international establishments such as embassies and museums.

 

Located in central Taiwan, the city of Taichung became the third largest city in Taiwan since 1980s.  While her population base has reached the one million mark in 2003, it has yet become a city with international identity, far behind the capital city of Taipei in the north (population 2.6 million) and the port city of Kaoshuing in the south (population 1.5 million). As a third-tiered city, Taichung is pretty much a close city with few international establishment. For one thing, there is yet any international-brand hotel in the city, as compared to Taipei and Kaohsiung.

 

To avoid being marginalized by the 2008 Peking Olympic Games, Taiwan’s national government has planned to host a mini-EXPO on 2008, under which the government will subsidy the construction of two EXPO sites for more than NT$30 billion. This is seen as one of the largest flagship projects in Taiwan’s urban development history. To that end, the city of Taichung has again bypassed of these flagship projects.

 

Flagship Projects and Urban Development

 

Hallmark, or mega events and flagship projects have been seen not only as economic development anchor but also urban transformer and cure to urban decline. (Kang, 2004; Baniotopoulou , 2001; Chalkely and Essex, 1999; Hall, 1996) Competitive bidding for hosting Olympic Games and World Fairs (Carriere and Demaziere, 2002), luring of casino on the river bank redevelopment (Sandercock, 2002) are some of the obvious examples. Flagship projects are often anchored in or next to declining neighborhood and district to act as stimuli of urban regeneration. It is the way out of poverty and decline, as most proponents would have claimed.

 

While relying heavily on public resources, the trend is toward joint partnership. Public subsidy backing up a joint-venture is seen as key ingredient to the making-up of a successful flagship.

 

Flagship projects and mixed benefits

 

The question remains as whether the pouring of public investment can bring up benefits as promised. In the case of Seoul, the 1988 Olympic and 2002 FIFA World Cup have brought to the city and the country mixed result. Kang (2004) stated,

 

The mega events amplified imbalances in Seoul’s development due to their effectiveness as catalysts for change. The Olympics deepened the disparity between the two regions of Seoul and between Seoul and the rest of the country, and the World Cup amplified generational and ideological divide. (p. 1)

 

It is becoming obvious that while proponents of mega-events and flagship project place emphasis on the potential economic as well as political (and image building) benefits, critics point out the potential negative social impacts of most mega-events and projects. Cox[1] (1996) uses the term showing off or showing up the city to caution the proliferation of mega events at any cost.

 

Culture quarter and urban regeneration

 

Culture quarter is defined as a “geographical area which contains the highest concentration of cultural and entertainment facilities in a city or town.” (Wynne, 1992) In several advanced countries, culture quarter is utilized as a tool to renew an older district such as residential development of redundant industrial buildings, new forms of retailing and development of the nightlife economy. This practice has reported success in cities like New York, Toronto, Boston, and Barcelona.

 

Growth machine and urban growth politics

 

On the other hand, some critics have argued that the core value of most urban development project is the calculated efforts of pro-growth alliance in most localities. (Molotch, 1976; Swanstrom, 1985) These machineries know how to utilize public resources for their monopolized gains, instead of creation of public interest. For Fulton (1997), a reluctant metropolis is where money politics dominated local decision-making process. For Loftman and Nevin (1996), going for growth through the procurement of prestige projects is necessary for local economic restructuring and development.

 

The Guggenheim Empire

 

Originally a mini foundation with a big dream, the first Guggenheim museum, designed by Frank L. Wright, was opened for business in New York City on the eve of 1959. The white-odd-shaped building immediately gained its fame in the arts industry as well as the architecture circle. Major renovation was completed in 1992 that gave new life to the museum where more than 10,000 pieces of art work were housed.

 

Expansion of the Guggenheim museum began in 1992 when the Soho branch was opened in the Greenwich district. It became a hit in the city and in the arts industry.

 

Invited by the Basque Government, the Foundation went abroad for a new venture of opening an European branch at the city of Bilbao in 1993. A bit unexpected, its grand opening in 1997 created a cultural and economic hit that has had significant impact on Guggenheim’s future expansion. (UNESCO, 1999)

 

To further duplicate the Bilbao effect, the Foundation began to explore the feasibility of opening up a branch in South America and finally landed a contract with Rio of Brazil on April of 2003. In their signed agreement, the Foundation’s press release read as followed[2],

 

"As in Bilbao," said Mr. Vidarte, "the new Guggenheim Museum in Rio will anchor a major urban redevelopment program and is certain to have a positive impact on the region. But six years of cooperation between the Guggenheim Foundation and the Basque Country have also produced a superlative cultural result, and we believe this can be expended to South America. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao looks forward to many collaborations with Rio."

 

With high expectation, the Guggenheim Museum unveiled a bold project to build a new museum in Lower Manhattan to be designed by Frank Gehry. The project was partially funded by the City of New York in 2000 to redevelop the piers area. Quoting the late 2002 New York Times[3], the new museum won’t be built in the near future.

Thomas Krens, the foundation director, acknowledged as unrealistic the prospect of financing the $950 million project at a time when the museum is cutting budget, staff and programs. Beginning Sunday, for example, the Guggenheim Las Vegas is to go dark indefinitely.

Not only was Guggenheim unable to foot the bill for the proposed new museum in New York City, but also have to close a brand new Guggenheim branch in Las Vegas due to financial difficulty. This is the modern day picture of Guggenheim in reality. Furthermore, the leaving of the Guggenheim Museum Chairman Peter B. Lewis on early 2005 places issue of “expansion versus concentration” on the table.[4]

 

Table 1 The Guggheim Chain

Location

Year

Architect

Status

New York City

1959

Frank Wright

In operation

Venice

1976

 

In operation

New York City

1992

Arata Isozaki

In operation

Bilbao

1997

Frank Gehry

In operation

Berlin

1997

Richard Gluckman

In operation

Las Vegas

2000

Rem Koolhass

Closed

New York City

2002

Frank Gehry

On hold

Rio de Janeiro

2003

Jean Nouvel

Contracted

Taichung

2004

Zaha Hadid

Preliminary contract

Source: http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/new_guggenheim/timeline.html.

 

Globalization and Local Connection

 

Is it McGuggenisation or an expression of local identity via connection with an internationally-known brand? This is the core issue involved in the Bilbao project. (McNeill, 2000) On the positive side, taking a culture facility as the gateway to joining in the global currents, it was expected to enrich local identity through the inflow of foreign know-how and art collections. On the negative side, the draining of resources endangered the funding structure of existing facilities, as in the Guggenheim Rio case.

 

Local Planning Context

 

Compared to other major cities in Taiwan, the city of Taichung was unique in her local planning context. Originally a distant outpost of rural settlement in central Taiwan, the city was chosen to house the Provincial Capitol of the newly-found Taiwan Province in 1887 under the Chinese Ching Dynasty (de facto ruler of Taiwan from 1683 to 1895). This act put the city on the map of Taiwan in late 19th century. However, the capital decision was later moved to the city of Taipei due to financial difficulties. When the Japanese rulers took over Taiwan in 1895 (till 1945), Taichung was again chosen as the administrative center of central Taiwan. In 1908, when the north-south rail system was completed, Taichung had become one of the three major political, commercial and cultural centers of Taiwan (Taipei in the north and Tainan in the south). By the end of the Japanese era, Taichung has become a city with about 90,000 in population (land size is about 3,000 hectares).

 

When the Nationalist Government regained the control of Taiwan after 1945, the city of Taichung was able to expand her administrative boundary four times with addition of 60,000 rural population in 1947.

 

Planning for culture facilities occurred only in recent decades. Before year 1980, there was only one culture center in the city of Taichung, donated by a local entrepreneur. It was after the implementation of one-center for every city that the city of Taichung received the grant to build the Taichung culture center in early 1980s.

 

During the 1980s, two major cultural facilities were completed by the central government inside the city of Taichung, namely the National Natural Science Museum and the Arts Museum (formally a provincial establishment, it became a national institution after 1998). On the other hand, the city had never embarked any museum venture of her own, nor other leisure ventures such as Zoo and Botanical Garden. So, as a city of fair size, before the coming of Guggenheim, Taichung city had very limited experience and expertise in the planning and operation of any museum. (except in the planning stage of the National Natural Sciences Museum during the early 1980s, an English expert named James Gardner was retained by the museum to design the exhibition space[5])

 

Table 1. Major Museums in Taichung

Name

Year Built

Capacity

Win-in Culture Center

1976

4,710m2

Municipal Culture Center

1983

15,178m2

National Natural Sciences Museum

1986

130,730m2

National Arts Museum

1988

30,790m2

Source: Taichung City Comprehensive Plan 2001, Culture Element, p. 3-5.

 

Planning with international presence

 

In the Japanese era, city planning in Taichung was modeled after the city of Kyoto in a smaller scale. Its legacy included the gridiron downtown (or central business district, CBD) in the train-station district and the twin rivers. The dominance of downtown Taichung was effected by the coming of island-wide rail system in 1908, not significantly affected by the coming of national highway in 1978.

 

Overall speaking, postwar Taichung was pretty much an inward-looking city, where outside influence was limited. When the city began to engage herself in outward expansion through stages of urban land consolidation in the 1980s, the city treasury profited from such ventures and built up a rich capital fund. By the early 1990s, city leaders had become more ambitious, exemplified by the 1995 new civic center design project.

 

The proposed new civic center, a 107-hectares new planning district created after the first evaluation of Taichung’s Land Use Plan in 1989 that will include a new city hall and a new city council building, is located outside downtown, a move to reflect the population shift. After an international design contest, a Swedish team was awarded the right to design the new center on May of 1995. However, a series of miscalculated steps as well as busted real estate market almost flunk the project by the end of 1990s. Though with high consensus, the new civic center is yet realized in the near future.

 

Planning against foreign investor

 

Prior to the arrival of Guggenheim, there was one local grass-root movement that fight against a multi-national corporation (Bayer). In the early 1990s, German-based Bayer Corporation proposed to Taiwan’s central government for a US$2 billion dollars investment for TDI production in the Taichung Harbor region. At first, the project was well received at the national level and the review process was expedited. An anti-Bayer alliance was formed that challenged the risk involved in the TDI production process. Labeled anti-investment, the local alliance was able to muscle enough clouds to stop the investment through legal and political means as well as then unheard referendum. Though outside the city domain, it was generally perceived that there were at least some evidences of anti-growth coalition in central Taiwan.

 

The Guggenheim Dream

 

Defining the Issues

 

There are several issue domains present in the Taichung Guggenheim venture: initiation of the idea, choosing a site for the museum, pricing the Guggenheim collections and expertise, defining major players, and confining a Taichung vision. These issues were interplayed by itself in some occasions but mostly intertwined.

 

Dream unfolded in 2001

 

The Guggenheim Dream was unfolded with the victory of Jason Hu as the new Mayor of Taichung in 2001. As the former Minister of Foreign Affairs at the National Government, Mayor Hu campaigned on the platform of promoting culture and economy as the city’s gateway to be an international city. The heart to Mayor Hu’s new culture policy is the duplication (or cloning by some critics) of the Guggenheim effect[6] in Bilbao, Spain. It was proposed that if the internationally-known Guggenheim museum can be built in the city of Taichung, its economic benefits can savor the city from sunken real estate depression and city image.

 

1. From a campaign slogan to a public policy: a dream with actions

 

Upon Mayor Hu’s arrival to the city hall in late 2001, the Guggenheim pursuit was unveiled within a month, a move that did not stir up too much notice.

 

First, an internal Planning and Facilitation Committee (PFC) was formed to jump-start the process on January of 2002. Committee members included both city officials and representatives from museums, galleries, universities and artists.

 

Second, a budget request of US$2 million for a feasibility study was sent to the City Council in the following month, which subsequently approved the budget without much noise. With the budget in hand, Mayor Hu began to ask for financial support from the central government, mainly the Council onCulture Affairs.

 

Third, Mayor Hu flied to New York City to meet with Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens about the feasibility study contract.

 

Fourth, a series of civic forum were held to educate and engage the public after the first hearing was held in partnership with the Taiwan Culture Association on late April.

 

Guggenheim coming to Taichung

 

Fifth, the Guggenheim team arrived in Taichung for candidate sites visits and field interviews on June 5 of 2002. For the first time in the city’s history, the dream to have an international museum branch was at least begun for the moment. President Chen of Taiwan gave the mayor a vocal support in his visit to the city after the Guggenheim team left the city.

 

Sixth, on June 24 of 2002, the city of Taichung, under the leadership of Mayor Hu signed the feasibility study contract with the Guggenheim Foundation in New York City, after a tour of Bilbao in their way to USA.

 

Seventh, the Guggenheim team arrived in Taichung on July for the second time with a team of famed architect (led by Jean Nouvel) and professionals (led by Director Juan I. Vidarte of Guggenheim Bilbao) for field study. The Planning Committee was later asked to examine the contents of feasibility study and its progress. An in-house Working Group was established to coordinate all related matters as the one-stop window.

 

Eighth, after Mayor Hu’s meeting with Thomas Krens in Las Vegas for details of having a Guggenheim branch, the Guggenheim team arrived in Taichung for the third time on October of 2002 to meet city officials on the design concept and possible styles of the new Taichung museum. At the year end, the Guggenheim team sent Mr. Patrik Schumacher to Taichung to report progress and recommend the integration of the proposed National Theater and Civic Center in the new Special District anchored by the Guggenheim Museum, which would form a new culture quarter. Meanwhile, Mayor Hu approached the Council on Public Works of the central government on the issue of appointing the Guggenheim team as the lead architect instead of following the normal purchasing rules set by the central government. The city also submitted the Guggenheim Branch Project to the Council on Culture Affairs and Council on Economic Development of the central government for subsidy.

 

Ninth, Mayor Hu reported to the Taichung City Council and asked for legislative support of the matching funds on March of 2003. The City Council received the plan with positive support. With regard to the expanded special district and the appointment of three famed architects for the three separated projects inside the district, the city staff was charged to resolve all legal issues.

 

Eleventh, the new Taichung Guggenheim model was presented to the city of Taichung on July 14 of 2003 and shown in an international press conference the next day in Taipei city. The free form model designed by Zaha Hadid was received with mixed emotions.

 

Twelfth, a grass-root group led by famed local artist Mr. Huang orchestrated a citywide ten-thousand-people signature movement on July of 2003 in support of three Yes(es): Guggenheim Taichung branch, Taichung City Council budget approval, and central government paying 50% of the project.’

 

Thirteenth, Mayor Hu formally briefed the Premier the Guggenheim Plan and asked the central government for a NT$ 5.2 billion support. The Premier agreed to provide NT$3.2 billion, with the rest of NT$2 billion to be decided after a comprehensive evaluation of culture resources allocation in the greater Taichung region in three weeks.

 

Fourteenth, the Guggenheim Feasibility Study was completed and reported in favor of the Taichung branch project with an estimated annual visitor of 1.2 million on September of 2003.

 

Fifteenth, the city formally submitted a special budget request to the city council in a special session on September of 2003. The city council passed an NT$ 8 billion special budget for the Guggenheim project with 13 conditions attached, key among them is the approval of central government support of at least NT$5 billion. The city then formally submitted a request for NT$5 billion support to the central government in the following month.

 

Finally, the Council on Culture Affairs informed the city that the central government had agreed to include the Taichung Guggenheim budget request of NT$5 billion in the year 2004-5 budget.

 

2. Playing hard balls and politics

 

By the end of 2003, after more than two years of hard works and negotiation, it seemed that the Taichung Guggenheim was no longer a dream. Once the central government approved her budget promise, ground breaking was likely to happen in 2004. Well, the game had yet begun.

 

However, with the Presidential election running in contested ground, the city was amazed to the fact that the FY2005 central government budget did not include the Taichung Guggenheim budget request of NT$5 billion. The city was forced to organize a Save-the-Guggenheim rally to express their discontent.[7]

 

To keep the Guggenheim Foundation on bait, the city then asked the central government to provide a emergency check of NT$286 million for a temporary contract funding.

 

The Taichung Guggenheim Dream in Perspective

 

A dream is something that is not tangible. In the history of Taichung, there was only one thing that came close to have some sorts of international connection. It occurred in the early 1990s when the city was amidst local real estate boom that contributed to a rich municipal treasury in the land consolidation fund, the city reached out a Swedish design team to charter a lavish and controversial new civic center. However, the following real estate bust stalled its progress and ended in legal battles.

 

From its beginning to its end, the Taichung Guggenheim plan was a one-man show. With such little prior experience in international negotiations, the city and her residents had no mirror knowledge to fashion the Guggenheim forum, let alone participation in decision-making process.

 

The site selection process and mentality: no redevelopment

 

Unlike other Guggenheim museum, the Taichung site is away from her central city. While claiming duplication of the Bilbao effect, there is no where near close between these two projects. The Bilbao Guggenheim is located next to a run-down industrial districts neighboring the city center, while the Taichung site is deliberately driven away from sites next to Taichung’s CBD, such as the Taiwan Sugar district and the Sixth Land Consolidation District where lands are available for redevelopment.

 

In her bid for the Rio project, the Guggenheim team also chose a declining harbor area for their new museum that promised to revitalize the area. In the Taichung case, redevelopment was never mentioned at all in the negotiation process by either party. It appears to outsiders that this new culture product does not need any local element at all.

 

Table 3 Guggenheim branch location in comparison

Branch

Location

Expectation

Partner

New York City

Soho

redevelopment

Own

Berlin

Unten den Linden

Redevelopment

Bank

Bilbao

Riverbank

Redevelopment

State gov.

Rio

Riverbank

Redevelopment

City gov.

Taichung

New civic center site

Tourism

City gov.

Source: websites.

 

Heritage preservation versus fashion show

 

Archaeological investigation of the proposed site for Guggenheim uncovered a series of relics and antiques that traced back at least 1200 years. For a young city like Taichung that had so few recorded past, these findings were culturally and historically significant. Mayor Hu reacted to the news with astonishing tones. Reading between his lines, he had shown little affection to these findings, but finding alternatives to remove this new-found road blocks.

 

A foreign brand with limited local inputs and restricted local space

 

This is one of perplexing issue throughout the process. In the Bilbao case, core collection of the Guggenheim Foundation would take up only one third of the exhibition space (estimated to be 11,000 square feet), leaving two third of the space for in-depth installations, the temporary exhibition and the site-special installations.

 

In the Taichung case, politically speaking, while the Mayor had solicited support from local artist groups and the city council from the beginning, it was the city council, especially the Speaker, who delivered the final blow to the whole deal. Chief among his vocal concerns include site, brand recognition and financial burden.

 

On the art community front, when local artists were orchestrated to support the Guggenheim project, demand for inclusion of local art works was presented to the negotiation table. They asked for a minimum of 3% exhibition space for local art works. Why so, and why only 3%? At first, it seemed like an inclusive token they wished to obtain from the Mayor’s office. Underneath the surface, it can be interpreted as their collective tactics to be blended into the international brand, as a way to a broader market base.

 

The price tag

 

With so much uncertainty, total cost of the Guggenheim project was like a swing. Initially, US$100 million was tossed out by the planning committee (without land cost) in the early stage. It was ballooned to US$200 million dollars at the final stage, not including other royalty fees and management costs. In that, the city not only has to pay half of the cost but also annual operating cost afterwards. The annual operating cost is estimated around NT$300 million, more than the total budget of the city’s annual culture budget[8].

 

In the Bilbao case, the principle of acquisition was twofold: ”to provide a complement to the Guggenheim Foundation collections” and “to provide a collection dedicated to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.[9]

 

Table The Guggenheim cost

Item

US Dollars

Time frame

Royalty fee

32 million

One time

Development fee

0.6 milloion

Annual for 30 years

Collection fee

80 million

Within 10 years

Management fee

10 miliion

Annual for 10 years

Building

150 million

One time

 Annual total

 

 

 

An end to a new beginning

 

By the end of 2004, it became clear to both Mayor Hu and those supporting the museum that the city had lost the last straw to set the contract floating again. The Guggenheim representatives essentially had lost their patience on second-guessing the political pendulum at both the local and national levels after the city repeatedly failed to finalize the contract and the temporary contact.

 

The Mayor’s role and the negotiation team

 

In retrospect, critics of the Bilbao branch still argued that the Basque government had gotten a bad deal under the Guggenheim imperialism. (McNeill, 2000)

 

Without Mayor Hu, there won’t be any Guggenheim talk at all. This is the general impression most local people would have agreed to in the past three years. Local press revealed that the Guggenheim Foundation did not pay much attention to the Taichung proposal initially. It was because of Mayor Hu’s continuous and persistent calls that convinced Thomas Krens to initiate the feasibility study in 2002[10]. The city paid heavily (more than 2 million US dollars) for both the feasibility study and the preliminary architectural design by Zaha Hadid.

 

Local growth alliance in action? boosterism?

 

The site selection and decision process leads one to question the Guggenheim plan as a concerted effort by the local growth machine on two grounds. First, prior to the Guggenheim announcement, real estate market inside and around the new civic center district had been suffering from the no-decision of a new city hall. This can be observed in the press of how the Bureau of Land Administration of the City failed to auction out its land holdings in the district repeatedly and was forced to discount the listed prices. These moves had helped lesson the soaring land prices in the city during the past decade. The coming of Guggenheim in essence halted the downward land prices. Second, Speaker of the city council, at the later stage of the Guggenheim hold-out, insisted on moving the museum to the airport brown-field and leaving the city hall project intact. His move was considered a tactical move orchestrated by the local growth machine to fight against the elite-based Guggenheim plan. Land owners in the new civic center district were mostly behind the Speaker’s back.

 

Art market and artist training

 

It was expected that the coming of Guggenheim could open up a new market for artwork trade and artist training. Even if the expected tourism not realized, this new stream could itself justify the Guggenheim investment.

 

Planning for what? Based on what?

 

Overall speaking, Mayor Hu’s call for a new museum that promised to transform the city into a culture economy center is but a campaign slogan that has little connection with the existing planning infrastructure and environment. The 2001 revised Comprehensive Plan that was completed at Mayor Hu’s inauguration period was not mentioned at all in his plea for civic participation.

 

Prospect and Conclusion

 

If we built it, they will come. If the Taichung Guggenheim is actually built, will the promised economic return come? After more than three years of deal-making and negotiations, it has become clear that the Guggenheim branch won’t find a house in Taichung. It remains a dream after all.

 

In the positive side, as a third-tiered city, Taichung has at least learned the hard lesson of the high cost involved in going international. One man’s charisma alone simply is not enough to convince a whole city on buying a foreign product that has so few local elements, let alone a whole line of municipal bureaucracy that was terrified by the English syndrome. The indifferent clone at least won’t be present in the city of Taichung.

 

The mayor campaigned on making culture-as-good-business for a city that already has a rich tradition of innovation and creative minds. By far, the mayor has failed to connect what the city has already possessed with what the new Guggenheim can bring about. The past and the future remain as two horizontal lines, waiting to be matched. Leadership by mayor Hu has coming short of making such a connection.

 

Money may talk, but not alone. The whole deal of bringing Guggenheim to Taichung is too narrowly confined in dollars and cents, which in retrospect may be the key to its downfall. In the future, the issues of downtown redevelopment, heritage preservation, and inclusion of local elements should be taken into serious consideration in Taichung’s next Guggenheim-like hunt. As in the case of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the local brand of Guggenheim with both a Chinese and Taiwanese twist.

 

 

Reference

 

Baniotopoulou, Evdoxia. 2001. “Art for whose sake? modern art museums and their role in transforming societies: the case of the Guggenheim Bilbao,” Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies 7:1-15.

 

Carriere, Jean-Paul and Christophe Demaziere. 2002. Urban Planning and Flagship Development Projects: Lessons from EXPO 98, Lisbon. Planning Practice & Research 17(1): 69-79.

 

Chalkely, Brian and Stephen Essex, 1999. “Urban development through hosting international events: a history of Olympic games,” Planning Perspectives, 14: 369-394.

 

Fulton, William. 1997. The Reluctant Metropolis: the Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles. Point Arena: Solano Press.

 

Hall, Thomas and P. Hubbard. 1996. “The entrepreneurial city: new urban politics, new urban geography,” Progress in Human Geography, 20(2): 153-174.

 

Iglesias, Lucia. 1999. Bilbao: the Guggenheim Effect, The UNESCO Courier, September 1998, p. 41-43

 

Kang, Hong-bin. 2004. “Mega events as urban transformer,” accessed from www.sdi.re.kr/nfile/zcom_eng_bbs/200409-01.pdf, December 20, 2004.

 

Loftman, Partick and Brendan Nevin. 1996. “Going for growth: prestige projects in three British cities,” Urban Studies 33(6): 991-1019.

 

McNeill, Donald. 2000. “McGuggenisation? National identity and globalization in the Basque country,” Political Geography 19: 473-494.

 

Molotch, Harvey. 1976. “The city as growth machine: toward a political economy of place,” The American Journal of Sociology.

 

Peterson, Paul. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

Sandercock, Leonie and Kim Dovey. 2002. “Pleasure, politics, and the public interest,” Journal of American Planning Association, 68(2): 151-164.

 

Scott, Allen. Ed. 2001. Global City-regions: Trends, Theory and Policy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

 

Swantrom, Todd. 1985. The Crisis of Growth Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

 

Wynne, D. ed. 1992. The Culture Industry. Aldershot: Avebury.

 

Hamnett, Chris And Noam Shoval,2003 ”Museums As Flagships Of Urban Development,” from Cities and Visitors, edited by Lily Hoffman etc. New York City: Blackwell.

 

[1] Cox, Gary. 1996. “Showing off or showing up the city?” paper presented at IAIA 96, the 16th Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment, Lisbon, Portugal, 17-22 June, 1996.

[3] Dunlap, DAVID W. 2002. “Guggenheim Drops Plans for East River Museum,” New York Times, December 31, 2002.

[4] It was reported that Mr. Lewis blamed “difference in direction” between himself and museum director Thomas Krens over the global brand issue. Mr. Lewis believed that the museum should concentrate more on New York and less on being scattered all over the world. See BBC News, 2005/01/21.

[5] Han Boa Der, 2001. Building the World: A Memoir. Taipei: Global Culture Publishing. (in Chinese), p. 241.

[6] Iglesias, Lucia. 1999. Bilbao: the Guggenheim Effect, The UNESCO Courier, September 1998, p. 41-43

[7] Taichung City Government, May 19, 2004 special report on the progress on the Guggenheim and city civic center projects to the City Council.

[8] In FY2002-3, total culture expenditure for the city of Taichung is about NT$200 million.

[9] Baniotopoulou, 2001, p. 9. The Guggenheim Foundation retains firm control over the collection power, leaving local as well as Spanish art works pretty much in the minor league, a sign of exclusion in her exercise of this contracted power.

[10] Legislator Chen Wen-chen on a talk show held in Taichung on August 24 of 2002, revealed that Thomas Krens of Guggenheim once told her that without Mayor Hu’s persistence, there won’t be any talk between the Guggenheim and an unknown city from Taiwan. Quoted from the Central Daily News (Chinese version), August 25, 2002.

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