Participatory shaping of historic territory. Civil society and culturepreneurs’ actions in the recovery of urban historic landscape in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Abstract

Strategies to commodify urban space often fail, producing devalorised, crisis-driven urban and regional landscapes. In many cases, the municipality is overstrained with the long-term recovery of these sites, but reintegrating such spaces in the city, either for limited duration or long-range, is something that some stakeholders actively pursuit. Owing to the pioneering spirit of such recovery projects, these actors are known as urban pioneers or space pioneers. This paper deals with these innovative actions that emerge in Cluj-Napoca and their contribution to the recovery of historic landscape and the creation of social space. Firstly, the paper defines the concepts of space pioneer/culturepreneur/temporary use, followed by a presentation of the socio-political frame in which these actions take place. Afterwards, the survey depicts major examples in Cluj-Napoca and finishes with a few conclusions about the impact of the participatory recovery of the urban historic territory and on spatial planning.