2004 Universal Forum of Cultures
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures - ( ca, Fòrum Universal de les Cultures, es, Fórum Universal de las Culturas) was a 141-day international event that took place in the ''Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB)'' and its surrounding venues,
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
from May 9 to September 26, 2004, and was the first edition of the Universal Forum of Cultures. The open space used by the event is now a public park called the Parc del Fòrum.


History

The 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures was organized by Barcelona's city council, the regional government (the Generalitat de Catalunya), the Spanish National Government and
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
.EM
Fórum Barcelona 2004
elmundo.es, Spain, May 31, 2004
It was conceived by its prime mover (
Pasqual Maragall Pasqual Maragall i Mira (; born 13 January 1941) is a Spanish politician and former President of Generalitat de Catalunya. He had previously been Mayor of Barcelona, from 1982 to 1997, and helped run the city's successful Olympic bid. Early l ...
, then Mayor of Barcelona) as a way of promoting the city's burgeoning tourist industry in the wake of the 1992 Olympic Games, which were also held in Barcelona. The forum was also politically useful, given the mayor's earlier failure to deliver on a 1996 promise to secure an international exposition for the city. The official aims of the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures included support for peace, sustainable development, human rights and respect for diversity. The forum hosted more than 40 international conventions (participants included
Juan Antonio Samaranch Juan Antonio Samaranch y Torelló, 1st Marquess of Samaranch (Catalan: ''Joan Antoni Samaranch i Torelló'', ; 17 July 1920 – 21 April 2010) was a Spanish sports administrator under the Franco regime (1973–1977) who served as the seventh P ...
, Mikhail Gorbachev,
José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which hec ...
,
Felipe González Felipe González Márquez (; born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish lawyer, professor, and politician, who was the Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997, and the 3rd Prime Minister of Spain since the ...
, Rigoberta Menchú,
Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...
,
Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the ...
,
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...
,
Lionel Jospin Lionel Robert Jospin (; born 12 July 1937) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002. Jospin was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and the party's candidate for President of France in ...
,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (; born Luiz Inácio da Silva; 27 October 1945), known mononymously as Lula, is a Brazilian politician, trade unionist, and former metalworker who is the president-elect of Brazil. A member of the Workers' Party ...
,
Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...
and
Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
, among others), performances, markets, games, 423 concerts, 57 street performances, 44 theatre, dance and cabaret companies, 20 circus acts and over 20 exhibitions. Josep Acebillo was named Director for Architecture and Infrastructures of the Forum. The events were held at the eastern end of
Avinguda Diagonal Avinguda Diagonal (, in Spanish Avenida Diagonal) is the name of one of Barcelona's broadest and most important avenues. It cuts the city in two, diagonally with respect to the grid pattern of the surrounding streets, hence the name. It was or ...
, a main cross-city artery. The seaside area was developed to house the event. It covered 30 hectares between the Barcelona Olympic port and Sant Adrià de Besòs, and culminated the urban regeneration programme started for the 1992 Olympics. The new site comprises a convention center, central plaza, parks, auditoriums, a new port and a
Forum Building The Forum Building ( ca, Edifici Fòrum, ; es, Edificio Fórum), is an architectural landmark in Barcelona designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (Herzog & de Meuron). The building is triangular in shape, measuring 1 ...
(designed by architectural firm
Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...
). In the framework of this Forum, the 4th Porto Alegre Forum of Local Authorities for Social Inclusion was held, which approved the
Agenda 21 for culture Culture 21, also known as Agenda 21 for culture, is a program for cultural governance developed in 2002–2004 and organized by United Cities and Local Governments. Part of the program's premise is to add culture as a fourth conceptual pillar of ...
on 8 May 2004.


Exhibitions

The forum showed four thematic exhibitions, intended to achieve a renewal of ideas and attitudes toward the 21st century, by undertaking a careful analysis of cultural diversity, sustainable development and the conditions for peace: * Voices. An exhibit (designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, creative direction by Mona Kim

of the world's languages to celebrate human communication and linguistic and cultural diversity. * Inhabiting the World. A study about how humankind relates to the planet's environment. It showed the need to adopt a more rational criteria for the use of natural resources on a planetary scale. It also showed
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
's natural diversity, and the effect caused by human activity, specifically by the phenomenon of urbanization. Finally, exposed the huge consumption and waste production by
Western society Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
. * Cities-Corners. A study about how cities are built. It included models about well known streets and building from the world ( Piccadilly Circus in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
or the
Flatiron Building The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, steel-framed landmarked building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Dan ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, La Pedrera in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
, etc.) and maps showing how some cities grew. It also showed about the growing of megacities, like
Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...
,
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
, Monterrey,
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
or
Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...
. * Warriors of Xi'an. An exhibition of Chinese
funerary art Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term encompasses a wide variety of forms, including cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains, and comm ...
, based on archaeological finds at the tombs of
Qinshihuang Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor ( ...
and Yangling. Among the pieces displayed, there was an exhibit of terracotta warriors of Xi'an from the
Qin Dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...
.


The place today

The central plaza and the open space surrounding forms a public area called Parc del Fòrum, and is now home to several massive events around the year, including the
Primavera Sound Festival Primavera Sound (commonly referred to as simply Primavera) is an annual music festival held in Parc del Fòrum in Barcelona, Spain that takes place between the end of May and beginning of June. The first edition took place in 2001 in Poble Espan ...
, Summercase, the Catalonia April Fair and the most popular concerts in
La Mercè La Mercè () is the annual festival ( ca, festa major) of the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. It has been an official city holiday since 1871, when the local government first organized a program of special activities to observe the Roman ...
.


See also

*
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
* Barcelona Development Agenda *
Urban planning of Barcelona The urban planning of Barcelona developed in accordance with the historical and territorial changes of the city, and in line with other defining factors of public space, such as architecture, urban infrastructure and the adaptation and maintenanc ...


References


External links


Official Web Site of Forum Barcelona 2004
{{DEFAULTSORT:2004 Universal Forum Of Cultures Forum Universal Forum of Cultures Conventions (meetings) World's fairs in Barcelona 2000s in Barcelona