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The New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative announced by President von der Leyen in January 2021 aims at connecting the European Green Deal to our living spaces. Ahead of a dedicated conference 22-23 April, we discussed about cohesion policy’s role in the New European Bauhaus with Commissioner Elisa Ferreira, who is in the lead for this initiative together with Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. We hope this interview will inspire you to contribute with ideas and examples on the dedicated website, and take part in designing this new European movement together.
Commissioner Ferreira, please present the New European Bauhaus and explain its innovative approach
This initiative is very special to me, particularly after the difficult year behind us that many spent locked at home dealing with immense change and uncertainty. I strongly believe the New European Bauhaus will be an impetus to improve where and how we live and to rebuild our lives better. As President von der Leyen says, this is a project of hope and recovery. Much like the original Bauhaus movement, which reconciled mass production with individual needs and artistic spirit, the new initiative strives to reconcile affordable, functional and aesthetically pleasing public and private spaces with sustainability. “Form should follow planet” with people at the core. It can be seen as the cultural expression of the “Green Deal”. It is about translating the core principles of sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion into our everyday life in our collective pursuit of green transformation. It should also embed our cohesion principles of leaving no one behind. Inclusion – affordability, accessibility - is particularly relevant here: we need to make sure that sustainability with style is not the privilege of a few but an opportunity for the many. Over time, the New European Bauhaus should be relevant for all regions and territories.
The initiative unfolds in three phases: Co-design, Delivery and Dissemination. Can you explain the phases and comment on the progress so far? Is it easy to mobilize wide support and engagement?
Currently we are in the design phase, where we explore ideas and shape the movement, drawing on the expertise and engagement of everyone – engineers, students, designers, activists, architects, academics, experts from all walks of life. We also want to hear from citizens and society at large – what are their expectations? How do people want to live, work and interact together in the new era of green and digital transition, when life happens online as much as in our physical spaces? We are gradually building a New European Bauhaus community, with high interest from various organisations to become our partners as well as many people providing ideas, examples and challenges.
There is high interest, lots of enthusiasm, and really great energy. We need to support this idea to become a European movement, spreading the New European Bauhaus concept also beyond EU borders. How do we do that? We need to reward good ideas, incentivise examples of the New European Bauhaus triangle. We will launch the first New European Bauhaus (NEB) prize at the conference on 23 April. Stay tuned! (and in the meantime, let me give you a little hint: subscribe to the NEB newsletter!) Secondly, some of the first contributions on our website call not so much for EU financing, but rather for support to overcome challenges such as capacity, lack of experience, networks and exchanges. So, we want to offer technical assistance, promoting multidisciplinary, place-based approaches in line with the NEB vision to support all those who want to do NEB projects and have good ideas, but don’t know quite yet how to do it. The delivery pipeline will grow gradually, producing the support framework. The objective is to start by supporting at least five New European Bauhaus pilots in different EU countries, followed by others, leveraging the innovative approaches of the European Urban Initiative under cohesion policy, and gradually mainstreaming various NEB actions in different EU programmes but also other public and private investments.
Outreach and keeping the conversation going are important. Citizens, organisations, design schools and other interested parties engage in conversations and share inspiring examples, ideas and challenges around the initiative. For example, such an event was organised in February to the benefit of the Urban Development Network[1]. I am happy the communication campaign is bearing fruits: we have already several hundred contributions harvested through the website and a list of first NEB partners announced in early March. These are the first 13 networks, associations and organisations that will act as promoters and key interlocutors; and the list is evolving rapidly every week. Of course, some actors are quicker to respond, but I invite organisations and people from across the EU to take part, we need partners from every country.
Imagine I am in an organisation /association and I want to get involved. How do I become partner?
Again, anyone can contribute with ideas, share challenges, documents or studies, subscribe to the newsletter or interact with the community at large on the NEB website. If you are also interested in organising events and conversations around the New European Bauhaus and want to help us promote the initiative, do apply to become a partner and tell us how you can best do that, who you want to engage with, which ideas you want to explore, whom you want to reach. Partners can use our “engagement toolkit” to involve citizens in these conversations. Partners certainly will play an important role as the co-design evolves into delivery. We will be very excited to see your proposals!
What about young people? Reaching out to young Europeans and giving them a voice can be challenging at times – does the New European Bauhaus address this?
We definitely want to hear from them, we need their creativity and perspective. Some of the communication channels we use are particularly targeting the 18-35 age group. Social media is obviously crucial to reach young people – @neweuropeanbauhaus already has over 7000 followers on Instagram J. The NEB is on Pinterest too. Gina Gylver – one of the members of the high-level round table - is only 19, but she is already a global voice on climate and now, an activist for the NEB as well. We count on her to lead by example and to spread the word among peers. This a project for all generations, and frankly, I think it could also be a bridge between them, with the potential to reconcile some of the big gaps that inter-generational issues of climate, technology, of opportunity have left open in society today. We want this to be a bottom-up approach with a wide involvement by all the different stakeholders, while we do our best to facilitate, support and provide an enabling framework with concrete results.
Cohesion policy is built on the principles of solidarity and partnership - what is its role in the New European Bauhaus? Will these principles apply?
Cohesion policy is a natural partner of the New European Bauhaus initiative, as it promotes convergence and solutions for development strategies that recognize economic, social and climate challenges, with a focus on the territories. The NEB discussion naturally revolves around places and the geographical space. With its strong local and regional focus, cohesion policy provides a well-established framework for sustainable urban development and experimentation at local level. Solidarity and partnership principles are also very much part of the NEB idea of inclusiveness, of co-creation, of being a movement for everyone, rather than a selected few or an elite. We know that this initiative will be breaking silos in every aspect of the way we live and do things, including EU policies. And it already does this by taking a bottom-up approach and co-designing the initiative together. The question is not about new or additional money, but about mobilising the resources under various European policies and programmes to ensure an effective start after the design phase and the diffusion through mainstream programmes, projects and funding sources. Does cohesion policy have a role to play? Absolutely. When we talk about transforming the places where we work and live, about affordable housing or public community places, of more sustainable building solutions and energy efficient renovation, this is the bread and butter of regional policy, where we have developed experience over 30 years. So, Cohesion policy philosophy and support instruments, including funding, are relevant here – from rewarding the best NEB examples to providing technical assistance, from nurturing NEB experimentation in urban environments to Member States taking up sustainability, aesthetics and inclusiveness as part of cohesion programming. Our success will largely rely on building strong communities that support the delivery of these visionary objectives. We hope to reach them together with you!
What about other policy areas: innovation, culture, industry?
The cultural and creative sectors have been among the first ones to embrace the New European Bauhaus and to start contributing to our reflection. Through the combination of technical and artistic skills, architects and designers are, of course, very well placed to participate in this initiative and manage co-creation processes with engineers, artists and citizens in general. We are looking at all the fields at once and try to connect the dots and find synergies. We want to reach out to artists, activists, designers, architects, students, scientists, engineers, practitioners and policymakers. The New European Bauhaus aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, ideas and needs between these actors – to empower communities to create a truly interdisciplinary project. We are also exploring how our tools could be mobilised to launch, relatively quickly, a first set of concrete actions, to provide tailored technical assistance to local stakeholders. We are also looking into the best way to a combine different instruments, such as LIFE programme, and, in close cooperation with Commissioner Gabriel, Horizon Europe, European Innovation Council and the European Institute of Technology.
Commissioner, you have said this is a project for all regions and territories in Europe. How would you concretely see this implemented, for instance, in an affluent urban region in Sweden versus a developing sparsely populated outermost region in the Azores? What about a small town in Poland or a rural area in Romania?
Obviously, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to this. The New European Bauhaus initiatives in each community and locality should reflect their specific local needs and vision. Nevertheless, I believe Cohesion policy can successfully meet the challenge, given our many years of experience in local translation and local transformation. We bring our established networks, our links with the local level and our experience in working for and with local people. We also bring our experience of transformation: from rural areas to industrial areas, from coal mining to urban planning – and we have accompanied many different transformations over the years. What we want is to use this experience and contribute to implementing the best ideas that will emerge from the New Bauhaus design phase and the emerging European Bauhaus community.
What are the next steps?
Let’s go step by step together: I invite you to join in the global conversation about the New European Bauhaus on 22-23 April and subscribe to the NEB newsletter to keep abreast the latest news. We will walk together in this amazing journey of hope, beauty and recovery to a greener, better future for us all!
[1] The network is made up of more than 500 cities/urban areas across the EU responsible for implementing integrated actions based on Sustainable Urban Development strategies financed by ERDF in the 2014-2020 period.