The ‘cultural turn’ in urban design

Our intent in this chapter was not to analyse Umeå’s urban design as a whole but to understand the effects of the cultural program on Umeå’s urban design and how they combined together to fulfil the city development plan. This chapter illustrates how the urban design planning was resumed by and became part of the Umeå ECoC program. We first provided a brief historical account of how the Umeå urban design developed until the appearance of the ECoC program, and its development after the Umeå ECoC program. Then we discuss the most important factors for the implementation of the urban design plan: the architectural vision, the projections about the living experience in the public spaces, and schemata about the local culture.