Putting the pzzazz into Graz

The European Capital of Culture for 2003 is Graz in Austria - but can it live down the legend of its famous son: Arnold Schwarzenegger? Derek Scally reports.

The biggest contribution the Austrian city of Graz has made to world culture could, until this week, be described in two words: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born here in 1947. But now Austria's second city hopes to add a few more cultural strings to its bow: Graz is the European City of Culture for 2003.

Tomorrow morning, the city's 250,000 residents and hundreds of international visitors will celebrate the official opening with a street festival, fireworks and a diverse music programme including those 1980s cultural escapees, The Fine Young Cannibals, as well as music that is described as "cutting-edge Japanese underground trance techno".

Graz has spent €57 million to put together an exhaustive programme of music, performance and architectural projects, all packed into the next 12 months.

"We want this festival to make clear that culture is not a luxury but rather an indespensible food," says Wolfgang Lorenz, director of the Graz 2003 festival.

For Lorenz, culture is not just about large-scale projects, of which Graz 2003 has many, but also about discussing important questions about society. "How do we want to live our lives in the future, how do we want to communicate and live with each other today. That is what this festival is about."

Last night saw the inauguration of the festival's first architectural highlight: the Helmut List Hall, a huge 19th-century industrial building now converted into a 1,200-seat theatre.

After the inauguration was the première of Begehren (Desire), an operatic retelling of the tale of Orpheus by the Swiss composer Beat Furrer. This evening sees the première of Butterfly Blues, the first play by the Swedish author Henning Mankell, who enjoys great popularity in Austrian and Germany.

Later in the year Graz sees other performance premières including a dance piece Insideout by the choregrapher Sasha Waltz.

Today sees the dedication of a full-scale reproduction of the city's 18th-century clock-tower, famous for having an hour-hand longer than the minute-hand.

One of the cheekiest installations is the Lift to Mary, a glass elevator installed next to the Mariensäule (Mary's Column) that takes visitors up to get a look at the statue of the adjacent Virgin Mary and the medieval town centre below.

Designer Richard Kriesche calls it "a way to let people actively experience social change away from pyramid power structures toward an egalitarian democratic society". And to think it just looks like a glass elevator.

The organisers have been careful not to make the festival a who's who of international artists and risk alienating the locals. The Schlossberg, the city's very own downtown mountain, has become the "Mountain of Memory". The fortified castle on top of the hill is the new home to a folk history exhibition, exploring the recent past of Graz through residents' stories, photographs and keepsakes.

One of the musical highlights of the festival acknowledges Austria's recent political history and the inaccurate perception, thanks to extreme-right politician Jörg Haider, that Austria is a hot-bed of extremists and neo-Nazis.

The Graz Symphony Orchestra has assembled a programme highlighting the work of composers who were ostracised by the Nazis and whose work remains in obscurity. The series, exploring the relationship between dictatorship and culture, includes important works by Tiessen, Goldschmidt, Tansman and Schulhoff.

"The selection ranges from late romanticism of the early 20th century to the modernism of the post-war years," says an orchestra spokesman. "We hope this series will reintegrate these composers back into the canon." Younger visitors aren't overlooked either and organisers have put together a children's programme of over 1,000 events.

But the most talked-about architectural contribution to the city's cultural celebration is the artificial island constructed in the middle of the River Mur flowing through the city.

The island of steel and glass resembles a cluster of merging clamshells and houses an open-air theatre, playground and cafe. The island is based on an idea by the Graz-born architect Robert Punkenhofer and is designed by Italian-American architect Vito Acconci, who calls it an "amphibian space" of communication.

"We wanted to design a place that is divided into two specific zones, and these zones should gradually merge", explains Acconci. "As water flows around the island, we wanted to construct an object that is also flowing and changeable." The island has room for 300 visitors and will also serve as a bridge between the medieval town centre and the Mariahilferplatz, the future home of the new Arthouse, a huge balloon-like structure constructed using concrete and steel supports.

The structure, dubbed the "Friendly Alien" by locals, is designed by London architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier and will open in the autumn.

"Graz was not named Cultural Capital 2003 so that a culture-less city could be finally provided with some culture," say the organisers. Instead, the festival will put Austria's second city on the cultural map and raise the bar considerably for Cork, the European City of Culture in 2005.

The festival's legacy to Graz will be a wealth of cultural riches that will put in the shade one of the city's current must-sees: the Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum.

Website: www.graz03.at Click "English" in the top right corner

Getting there: Ryanair flies daily from London Stansted to Graz