"When the students are ready, the teachers arrive."
This is how the first edition of Brand the City concluded - an event that Europe’s oldest city seemed to need right now. A city gradually reaching the next stage in building its identity. Or at least, we all hope, it is ready for it.
The truth is, there’s no need to reinvent everything from scratch. It’s much wiser to learn from cities that have already walked this path. We need to extract the lessons, and then combine them with our own authenticity. This is the main task for all of us - citizens, designers, architects, municipal workers - to preserve Plovdiv’s character while developing it.
The teachers who came to share their experience were people who had worked on the identity of cities like Prague, Vienna, Leipzig, Porto, Amsterdam… They responded to the invitation of the hosts from Studio PUNKT and their partners from KOMPLEKT who for years have been responsibly shaping the city’s appearance and its details through the urban projects they work on.
What did we actually learn?
This article does not aim to retell the presentations we watched. Rather, it wants to share the feeling that remains after such an event. Because a quality event never ends with the speakers’ last words. The real part begins afterward - in the thoughts of the audience, in meetings with participants, and in conversations over a beer.
A wave of emotions, ideas, and associations gradually starts to arrange itself. Sometimes so strongly that you wish you had been there with even more friends, architects, designers, people from the city. You wish you had invited everyone, because everyone needs to hear these stories. You hear a thought, see a slide, and say to yourself, “Oh, if Dimitar and Maria were here!” We shared stories about discovering the character of a city, how to look closely at the small details that sometimes can tell it all.
Gabor Schreier, Saffron Brand Consultants, Vienna, spoke about a city’s identity as the thread that connects citizens, institutions… about the value of branding and overall strategy beyond creating “just a logo.” Identity is not just a logo.
Christian Hanke, Edenspiekermann, Leipzig, framed the idea that urban identity shouldn’t only appeal to or be used by designers, architects, or tourist agencies… Urban identity is for all the city’s residents and it should resonate all of them.
Roel Stavorinus, Thonik, Amsterdam, noted that bringing architects, designers, and city administrators together in one place is a big event and achievement, even for the Netherlands. Urban planning builds cities, but identity exposes the ambition behind it and invites people to participate. The city is the mirror of its time, we have to find the reflections.
Adam Pustelnik, Deputy Mayor of Łódź, showed the strategy for transforming a district and the collaboration between the private sector and city administration.
Michael Dolejš and Jakub Spurný from Najbrt, Prague, shared a lot of inside information on how an idea is created, an honest account of problems, difficulties, and overcoming them along the way, so that we don’t think everything is perfectly arranged in someone else’s kitchen - because for us, everything always comes with challenges and chaos.
Kostis Karatsas of The Greek Foundation, Thessaloniki, spoke from the perspective of people changing cities from outside the institutions, who are nonetheless a large part of the authenticity.
And finally, Eduardo Aires, Studio Eduardo Aires, Porto. His project for Porto is exactly the perfect story that clicks from beginning to end. It carries the spirit of the residents, authentic heritage, city emblems, and a modernist approach and application. The textbook we wanted to share with all our friends. Eduardo reminded us in the end of a well-known motto familiar to Plovdiv - Design, above all, brought us TOGETHER, in one place.
How Inspiration Works?
First comes pure pleasure - to hear a brilliantly told story of where an idea was born. Sometimes from a random walk through the streets. Sometimes from a conversation in a bar with a stranger, sometimes from crowded tourist-filled streets. Your senses sharpen, and you start noticing details, making analogies, applying different perspectives. And then you ask yourself: where is my personal story? Which is my coincidence, which I have taken for granted and unconsciously applied in some idea?
On the next slide, suddenly, you remember your own project. Something you are thinking about at the moment. A direction you are seeking. A sound you haven’t yet heard. Associations begin, mathematical links, you assemble the algorithm, connect the dots in the diagram.
And suddenly - that long-sought click appears. Uplifted by other people’s ideas, you find the solution to your own. Small ideas, seemingly minor projects that build your creativity, layer upon it, and you become part of the group of creators who work precisely here, in Plovdiv. From here, it starts traveling around the world. If each person in the audience leaves with at least one new idea or discovered solution, that means dozens, perhaps hundreds of future small interventions in urban life - in projects, in designs, in initiatives, in demands to the authorities, or even in tattoos :) ( whoever was at the event, knows what I mean)…
This is the change that is often stronger than all the visible problems - crumbling sidewalks, failing transport, or chaotic urban environment. Change starts with the way we think about the city. And although some of the city officials only attended the opening, the audience’s inspiration remains. Little by little - regardless of everything - the people who work for the city will continue to change it. Despite everything.
Until the next edition. We hope Brand the City will have one. Because such gatherings are not just festivals, they are catalysts of ideas. And if we were to rewrite the communication line and slogan of the world’s biggest sports stage The Olympics (in its renovation - I don’t know if you know, but Plovdiv also has its part):
Design and more than design.
Truer, deeper, braver - together.
