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'Ceramic City - Design For Public Space' Conference, Stoke-on-Trent

By: Charlotte Frost

’The Ceramic City - Design for Public Space’ conference, held on 9 and 10 October 2009 at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery and organised by Art&Architecture Journal Conferences in partnership with the British Ceramics Biennial (BCB), coincided with the BCB Festival held throughout the city of Stoke-on-Trent from 3 October - 13 December 2009.

In some ways the conference title was a misnomer in that many of the presentations and subsequent discussions focused on the challenges of bringing about regeneration of the city rather than how physical regeneration could be addressed by providing groundbreaking exemplars for the application of ceramics in the public realm. References to, and serious discussions about, the potential for integrating ceramics within the built environment and to Stoke-on-Trent public art policies and strategies for bringing artists into the planning stage of new developments took a back seat. The morning's presentations from Urban Vision North Staffordshire, the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership, Edward Cullinan Architects and The Hothouse Ceramic Design Centre focused on the challenge of preserving the heart of the city centre, Stoke? problems of 'perception' and how to progress regeneration schemes within the current economic turndown. We were however reminded that Stoke is still a major producer of ceramics world-wide with approximately 150 ceramic businesses based in the city. Another reminder was that Stoke is made up of six towns and is a city built on ceramics shaped by the...

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