Bhubaneswar: Creative City in the making

Bhubaneswar: Ekamra Plaza, the gateway to the Old City from the heart of the State Capital is getting ready to come out as a major attraction for the city dwellers and visitors to the historic city.

The plaza, which would act as a bridging link between the two parts of the Temple City, is part of the 5.8 km-long Smart Janpath Project of the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, which comes as a symbol of modern creative design for a liveable city.

Near the Ekamra Plaza, citizens can sit and spend their time, just pass time and have a chat with each other. Kids can have a nice time as in future beautiful light arrangements, plants and flower pots are likely to enhance the ambience of the area.

After some days another point near Master Canteen Square would also have a beautiful line on the similar platform ‘I Love Bhubaneswar’ linking the connection of the young minds and their bonding with the city.

All these are going to reflect the creative side of the city’s genesis from an ancient capital city to the modern Smart City in the making.

The Creative City is a concept developed by Australian David Yencken in 1988. Later, the concept has evolved as a pan-world idea incorporating new planning ideas for the city development.

Yencken first wrote about his idea of Creative City in his article ‘The Creative City’, which was published in the literary journal Meanjin. In his write-up, he argued that a Creative City must be able to provide better places for the young and creative citizens so that they can work more nicely.

The Creative City was initially linked to the aspiration aspects, but later ideas like the creative potential of places and the people pitched in and it also started incorporating solving urban problems through creative ideas.

Creative City thus sees creativity in its all aspects of the urban realms like having creative buildings, roads, sewage, parks, boundary walls, flyovers and also with open spaces and medians. The city gets transformational ideas by the young minds as they think and design for their own city and how it would be represented to the visitors and people from the outside world.

The beautiful murals decorating the city walls along the Priority Road Network, public toilets with creative lines to attract users, city’s traditional assets like old traditions and cultural activities in the Old City, heritage conservation and ideas like heritage walk, activities of the local artisans to produce beautiful art and crafts for the local artists would also come as elements in a Creative City.

“Bhubaneswar has become a city of change through creative ideas in use of technology and this has been reflected in IT infrastructure, transport, traffic management, future solar power harvesting and many things, which in long run, will benefit the citizens,” said Master Apollo, a city resident.

“The crafts of the region and its cultural resources including the beautiful monuments are getting highlighted more and more with the initiatives like heritage walks.  The urban cultural resources include the historical, industrial and artistic heritage of assets including architecture, urban landscapes or landmarks,” said senior tour guide Satya Swarup Mishra.