The Culture Club

No one can accuse the French of letting a little global recession stand in the way of their cultural pride. The proposed new museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations, a vast minimalist cube on the Marseille waterfront, will cost a hefty €175 million. But whatever the economy's plight, the authorities aren't about to halt the project. Earlier this year new culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand was quick to pledge his support, and the government stumped up an extra €6 million to ensure that Marseille's latest ornament will be finished in time for the city's stint as European Capital of Culture in 2013.

Such generosity represents more than just a nod to national prestige. In Europe, countries looking for ways to reboot their economies have been finding cash to splurge on their cultural infrastructures or forging ahead with prominent projects that could spell future prosperity. Unlike in America, where museums faced with plummeting endowments are being forced to cut back on renovations and acquisitions—as well as staff, hours, and shows—many of Europe's cultural institutions are getting a recession makeover. This fall the British government promised £60 million to rescue culture projects, including a new exhibition center for the British Museum designed by Lord Richard Rogers; an extension to the Tate Modern gallery; and a £166 million Film Centre in London. Arts minister Ben Bradshaw said dropping culture projects would be "political madness," defying the stimulus logic of investing in vital infrastructure in hard times. Germany's €82 billion stimulus package provides money to kick-start cultural infrastructure projects, including the restoration of Wagner's villa at Bayreuth. France's economic stimulus package includes €100 million intended for the culture ministry to spread its largesse. The theory is that what's good for the arts is good for the economy: Paris's best-known modern building, the Pompidou Centre, begun in 1972, survived an oil shock and a deep recession to open in 1977. It now receives 6 million visitors a year. "The time has come to maintain our heritage," said President Sarkozy, announcing the extra cash earlier this year. "It is a question of identity, of meaning, of respect for our culture."

In some cases that calls for fixing or restoring historical treasures. The French package covers face lifts for a range of well-loved monuments, among them the Louvre and the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and the palace of Versailles. Other beneficiaries include a new museum of Lalique glassware in Strasbourg and the Palais de Tokyo, the capital's museum of contemporary art, which will get new exhibition space. In Germany, the largest single recipient of the cultural stimulus money will be the country's most popular museum, the Deutsches Museum of science and technology in Munich, which is slated to receive €29 million for, among other things, a new façade and entrance hall.

However, these projects may only partially reverse the effects of the recession. The completion later this year of British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid's National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (MAXXI), a giant shell of steel and glass above a former barracks that was conceived in the late 1990s, may mark the close of an era when European cities fought to outdo each other with megaprojects, from Berlin's rebuilt Reichstag to London's Millennium Dome. In Spain, work on the vast "City of Justice" in Madrid, including a dramatic circular civil court building by Hadid, is now on hold. So, too, is Norman Foster's £230 million remodeling of Camp Nou, Europe's largest football stadium, in Barcelona, the city that pioneered the use of renowned architects for civic renewal. Now the big projects are mainly in the developing world, led by high-profile commissions in China and, above all, by Abu Dhabi's $27 billion campaign to create a cultural Mecca. The U.S. and Europe won't be left out—Abu Dhabi's plan features offshoots of the Louvre and the Guggenheim—but they won't be in the lead, either.