NEB marries culture and innovation with a new cooperation network

The initiative seeks the closer integration and engagement of cities and regions

EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel held an online meeting yesterday, 14 April, with the mayors of the European Cities of Innovation and European Capitals of Culture in a bid to closely engage local authorities into the goals of the New European Bauhaus. After the consultation, she announced that a new cooperation network has been created in a way that reflects the multi-faceted values of the initiative.

This comes in fulfilment of the Joint Action Plan between the European Commission and the Committee of Regions adopted in October 2020 which stipulated for a more assertive and visible role of cities and regions in the design processes and decision making for the future of public spaces and citizens’ quality of life.

The next step will be the announcement of the NEB Awards on 22-23 April

The EU Commission would like to drive home the idea and the principles behind the New European Bauhaus, which is meant to unfold along the lines of three seemingly unrelated principles: aesthetics, sustainability and inclusion. These, however, although having been often considered separately, are, and have always been, intricately combined in examples of good practices for urban planning. With the new cooperation network, the idea is to allow local administrations from cities that have excelled in different spheres (such as culture and innovation) to share and fuse such practices.

Nevertheless, Commissioner Gabriel has assured that what is sought here is not conformity and uniformity but rather, the practical and appealing variety that will satisfy the particular needs of the residents of every city and region in Europe.

Finally, the EU Commissioner with some specific information on the progress of the initiative since its beginning: “We already have 80 partners in the New European Bauhaus. Parallel to the stage of design we also work to create interactions between existing ones EU programs to support the launch of the first five pilot projects. During the high-level conference on 22-23 April we will announce the New European Bauhaus Awards”.