ALTHOUGH 450 miles of cold and choppy North Sea divide Aarhus, on the east coast of the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, and Kingston-upon-Hull, on the northeast coast of England, the two ports have something in common. Stroll on both refurbished waterfronts and you feel the tides of change. In Hull, the futuristic, pointed prow of The Deep—an aquarium and oceanresearch center—thrusts into the broad Humber estuary, while next to the marina new arts venues and craft workshops are filling the sheds and stores of the old fruit market. On Aarhus’s dockside, the dazzling, seven-sided Dokk1 looks like a spaceship, but it holds a state-of-the art library and cultural hub. The reason for all this activity? Both places are 2017 cities of culture.
Aarhus, along with Paphos in Cyprus, is the latest city to win the EU’s Capital of Culture title—a competitive accolade first awarded to Athens in 1985, and now granted to two bidders every year. Hull, meanwhile, has become the second place after Derry-Londonderry in Northern Ireland to benefit from the U.K.’s own City of Culture scheme. The U.K. devised this domestic spin-off, held every four years, after the success of Glasgow and Liverpool as Europe’s Capitals of Culture in 1990 and 2008.
Both victorious cities promise a year-round jamboree of arts, spectacles and community events. From a Viking epic on a museum roof and a year-round residency by the singer-activist Anohni in Aarhus, to multimedia installations by the lighting designer of the Rio 2016 Olympics, a festival of Nordic music and even a live performance of the whole of David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Zigg Stardust…, their calendars bulge with goodies. “This is a 365-day program,” stresses Martin Green, chief executive of Hull 2017 and the mastermind behind London’s Olympic ceremonies in 2012. “Many people in my industry are used to planning for a two-week festival. You have to find a different rhythm.”