International Zaragoza

To be elected as European Capital of Culture represents for European cities an opportunity to organized for a year a cultural programme for emphasizing the richness, diversity, and common characteristics of European cultures. Along the last twenty years, from its start in 1985, the election as European Capital of Culture has become a big engine for the cultural and socio-economic development of cities.

Among member States, in order to present their candidacy to become European Capital of Culture, a rotation system for countries has been created. 2016 will be the year for Spanish and Polish cities.

Zaragoza is living a key moment of its development. The different projects implemented thanks to the Expo, its progressive increase of population, and its vital cultural activity have made Zaragoza to become the perfect city for becoming CULTURAL CAPITAL in 2016.
The capital of Aragon will compete with the rest of Spanish candidate cities. Santander, Asturias (Oviedo-Gijón-Avilés), Cáceres, Málaga, Córdoba, Burgos, Segovia, San Sebastián, Cuenca, Tarragona, Pamplona, and Alcalá de Henarés.
The appointment process has started with the self-proclamation of the cities that want to participate. In 2010, the Spanish Government will make the official announcement to present the candidacies, and the cities will show their projects. A year later, in 2011, the Selection Committee will make the first cut, and, even though does not exist a regulation on the number of cities that must pass this first stage, the number is generally 4 or 5. There is a ?mixed? selection committee, in other words, a committee formed by seven experts appointed by European institutions -one of them acting as chair- and six experts appointed by the member State, in this case Spain.
Later on, the selection committee will study during 2011 and 2012, the programmes of the cities that have passed the first cut. In 2012 will be designated the city that will be European Capital of Culture in 2016.

Main lines of Zaragoza candidacy

Goya as its most representative and universal figure, development of avant-garde arts, and knowledge.
Buñuel, as a link between cinema and the city, surrealism, visual arts, and alternative movements. 
Fernando El Católico. 2016 will mark the 500 years of his death. He was the first prince of the modern ages, and axis of the bimillenary history of Zaragoza and its relation to Europe.
Zaragoza Latin. The Hispanic World in its widest and global sense as well as a bridge to Latin America, from our historic bonds to the multicultural reality of the new citizens of Zaragoza.

Strategic lines

The main strategic lines/objectives of Zaragoza candidacy are:

1) Promote Zaragoza as cultural capital, spreading its facilities, arts heritage, and cultural activities.

• Doubling its present cultural tourism

2) Boost the implementation of all the public and private equipments projected, in a suitable time and form

• "16 para el 2016". 16 cultural equipments for 2016

3) Integrate the architectural heritage and equipments in the planning of the city

• Integrating the historic centre wit the new Zaragoza of the postExpo/Digital Mile, through the Ebro as pedestrianised-monumental and landscaped axis.
• Boosting new pedestrian and mobility axes according to the aims of the municipal mobility plan.
  

4) Take advantage of the cultural, tourist, ludic, and transport infrastructures built for  the Expo.

• Articulating the Ebro as a new cultural axis, linking the historic centre to the new West Side of Zaragoza.

5) Culture as an economic and employment booster.

• Boosting cultural, week-end and congress tourism by making good use of the existing infrastructures, as well as promoting actions with the private sector (tour-operators, religious tourism, cultural events).
• Promoting new national and international cultural initiatives for helping to spread our programmes and potential. 
• Integrating the big number public-private initiatives into the field of culture, and projecting them jointly.
  

6) Boost a bigger use of our theatres and cultural centers by the citizens of Zaragoza .

• Increasing domestic cultural consumption

7) Turn Zaragoza into an international referent in the cultural field, and a bridge between Europe- Latin America-North of Africa.

• Projecting the postExpo city, making good use of Zaragoza multiculturality, and proposing to the European Union to become a cultural bridge between Europe, Latin America, and the North of Africa. It will also serve to increase city cohesion.

8) Boost new technologies and cultural forms.

• The incorporation of Digital Mile to the candidacy will allow us to propose new cultural forms and technologies able to open the traditional range, and the incorporation of young people in an easiest way.

9) Link the candidacy to the objective of drawing up a Strategic Cultural Plan for the city.

• Implementation of the Observatory for Cultural Policies

10) Citizens participation must be a basic axis of the candidacy

• A candidacy that is participatory, cohesive and agreed by consensus
• Channelling a group of trained and organised volunteers available to support the candidacy,
  

Organization tools for boosting the candidacy

• Creation of a Foundation exclusively for the implementation of the project.
• Budget for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011.
  

It will be made from the austerity that the economic situation requires, but with enough means to present a solvent candidacy.

• Drawing-up, in a maximum of six months, of a full dossier of the candidacy which will serve also as a Cultural Strategic Plan for Zaragoza for 2016, to be implemented even if the city is not elected as European Capital.
• Opening of a special office at Torreón Fortea. 
• Transversality of the candidacy through the integration of the rest of municipal departments, especially the Promotion Department. 
• Boost the creation of a specialists committee and a sectorial council which will allow participation to be an axis of the project. The volunteers of the city (chosen from Expo volunteers) will participate in the candidacy.
• Unite the support of the institutions, especially that of the Government of Aragon and the Provincial Government (Diputación de Zaragoza), as well as the rest of institutions of Zaragoza and Aragon.
  

Advantages

Zaragoza 2016, which is actually working in the design of a viable project to be hold the European Capital of Culture, has set off with a great advantage over the most important candidates. Expo 2008 has left in Zaragoza several top-quality cultural equipments, and has favoured the future construction of others. The University Main Hall, the museum Ibercaja Camón Aznar, the extension of the museum Pablo Gargallo, the Contemporary Arts Center Pablo Serrano, the Fire Museum, Cubit space, the Bridge Pavilion, the Water Tower, the Convention Centre, the River Aquarium, as well as buildings with an avant-garde architecture and engineering ?the future Climate Change Institute in the Spanish Pavilion, and Aragon Pavilion are some of the cultural equipments recovered or already built, but there are more.
Caixa Forum, Goya Space, the Arts and Technology Center, Zenit Pavilion in Zaragoza Fair Trade, and the space of the SGAE (General Society of Spanish Authors) are the next equipments that  will be a reality in 2016. Therefore, Zaragoza has already ?in the dates for the pre-selection of the candidacy- a group of cultural equipments with wonderful possibilities to hold a varied and eclectic programme, joining tradition with modernity. The objective is to reflect the soul of Zaragoza, a city that is growing without complexes and is advancing with big steps towards a promising future in which innovation will have a big specific weight.
Cultural equipments: "16 for 2016" (16 para 2016).

Museum Pablo Serrano

The building will triple its surface to host in 2010 a centre for contemporary art. The most contemporary architecture will be introduced, and also sculptures that will be placed in the extension works for the museum, at paseo María Agustín. A building that will surprise at the end of 2009, not only by its volume -with a surface that will  pass from 2,500 m2 to 7,500 m2, but also by its location in a very fenced area, as well as by its metallic and light closing made in Japan, and with a colour that will make it resemble a ?gem reflecting the sky?. This project, coming from an idea of the Department of Culture to equip the city in 2010 with a center used as a museum of contemporary art, Zaragoza will maintain the architectural relevance obtained with the Expo.

Goya Space

The extension project will focus on the figure of Goya, with a special emphasis on its training stage in Zaragoza, and explaining both the influences received by other Aragonese painters, and also the effects of his works in other artists till present time. The best specialists in the work of Goya, such as Gonzalo Borrás, has collaborated to carry out this project.. Goya Space aims at being a reference museum, with a documentation center specialised in Goya, and using new exposition system. The extension of the Museum of Zaragoza by the creation of Goya Space, will allow this cultural facility to dispose of big halls for temporary expositions that will make possible the organization of large-scale expositions.

Art and Technology Center

This center will include an art gallery focusing on new technologies, an area for working, and production facilities with modern material.  have as The main objective of the research and production branch will be the launching of a programme able to attract local, national, and international artist, generating new projects, collaborations, expositions, and programmes able to attain the participation of the whole city of Zaragoza, with an special emphasis on the Digital Mile.

New Art School

The project considers the construction of three buildings linked through the ground floor. It will have a library, classrooms, assembly hall, gym, and even sport courts. In the south area -the nearest to the river and also the most visible- the auditorium and the expositions hall will be the big gate of the ensemble.

Main Hall of the University of Zaragoza

With its 115 years, this building, designed and headed by the architect Ricardo Magdalena, is the only university equipment considered as Cultural Heritage, and has become the institutional image of the University of Zaragoza. The Main Hall was one of the most outstanding Spanish buildings of its age, contributing in a decisive way to the renovation of Aragonese architecture among the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. 
Among the most important changes is the extension of the area of the University Library, the recovering of the indoor court as a small public square, the insertion of wide exposition halls in the ground floor and the basement -where new ideal areas for the exhibitions of contemporary art have been created- and the recovering of the rotunda at the south façade, once again opened to the outside, and making possible a bigger spatial fluidity and a better running of the building. Precisely in this area, a cafeteria will be placed, an habitual equipment in a building focusing on the cultural and public use.

Museum Ibercaja Camón Aznar

The museum faces a new phase with the exposition of 333 works and 244 engravings of Goya, distributed along 3 floors. The works reflect the art at the passage from the 15th to the 16th, with a core that confers a distinction stamp: the complete collection of engravings by Francisco de Goya that are showed for the first time in a museum. The collection of engravings of this master occupies the middle floor of the old Renaissance palace. The rest of the museum is articulated in this way: the first floor with paintings and sculptures from the 16th to the 18th centuries (before Goya), and  in the third floor, those from the 19th and 20th centuries (after Goya).
Extension of the Museum Pablo Gargallo
The works for the extension of the Museum Pablo Gargallo ?being implemented- will suppose a 40% more of useful surface. The reform, with the adjoining building at calle Torrenueva nº 20, will allow the museum to increase its collection. One of the objectives is to incorporate progressively the original models of those sculptures already catalogued, empowering the possibilities to increase and specialise the complementary activities, as well as to improve every aspect of the museum, and update and diversify the services offered to users and visitors.

Fire Museum

This important equipment that forms part of the actions programme of the Comprehensive Plan for the Historic District, represents an important contribution for the renovation of this urban area.

Cubit

This building will hold a digital library and an area for alternative activities. The action focuses on the recovering of the consolidated building by using materials such as perforated white concrete and plasterboard (inside of the building), streamlining inner circulation and the distribution of functional services among the different areas.

New pavilion for Zaragoza Trade Fair

Zaragoza Fair Trade has passed an ambitious extension project to be implemented in two stages. The first ?to be implemented soon- will increase in a 20% the surface for expositions, whereas the second stage will mainly focus on the construction of the future multifunctional pavilion Zenit, with 23,000 m2 of surface and 42 metres high. Zenit Pavilion can hold shows for 30,000 spectators in its open-plan floor.
SGAE Space (General Society of Spanish Authors)
The equipment that the SGAE wants to build at the old Portillo railway station, will allow the city to organize great operas and musicals. This new space will strongly focus on the lyrical genre, without forgetting pop music and modern musicals. There will be also complementary areas such as, maybe, a digital cinema.

Fleta Theater

The theatre will be rebuilt to host Zaragoza Film Archive and the Aragon Dramatic Centre. The building, that will include the facilities and representations of the Aragonese Dramatic Centre (CDA), will also host Zaragoza Film Library and probably all film festivals of the city as well as new audiovisual proposals.
CaixaForum
This building will be equipped with two big exposition halls of 810 and 430 m2 hanged on different levels connecting the city centre with the new Portillo Park, and creating a new public area on its ground floor. The plot of land where CaixaForum Zaragoza will be built has 4,407 m2. The total useful surface of the social and cultural centre of la Caixa in Zaragoza will be 5,527 m2, with a foreseen budget of 15 million euros.
For the appointment of the team in charge of the design and construction of CaixaForum Zaragoza, ?la Caixa? Social Work (Obra Social ?la Caixa?) called last autumn a restricted contest to which six of the most prestigious architecture offices in Spain were invited. The studio of Carme Pinós was finally selected, after taking into account criteria such as the adaptation of the proposal to the philosophy and concept of CaixaForum as a living space for serving all the citizens, as well as the capacity to create an emblematic and innovative building able to become a reference point among the new urban spaces developed in Zaragoza after the arrival of the high speed train and the Expo 2008.

Expo legacy:

The Bridge Pavilion, the Water Tower, and the Convention Centre, complete and complement this list of 16 cultural equipments already operative in Zaragoza, which are one of the most important chances of the city to be elected, since no other candidate city dispose of so many and varied cultural equipments. Apart from this, one of the main values of the city Zaragoza is its first rank infrastructures. 
The new football stadium will also include the most advanced facilities for organising other events ?great music shows mainly- using less logistics and production means, and without damaging this sports equipment.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS 2009-2011

• Presentation of the candidacy logo and its applications.
• Launching of a communication plan.
• Spreading plan and adhesions campaign
• Web site
• Launching of Zaragoza Observatory of Cultural Policies
• Creation of a permanent structure -"Fundación 2016"
• Sponsorship and external collaborations plan 
• Plan of social participation
• Drawing-up of the candidacy project