Culture
The University of East Anglia on the outskirts of Norwich is, contrary to popular belief, not one of the so-called plate glass universities. The UEA (founded 1963), along with Sussex University, were both founded before the Robbins Report. UEA adopted the city's motto of independence Do different and is especially well-known for its creative writing programme; established by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson, and whose graduates include Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan. The university campus is the home of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts which houses a number of important art collections in many media. It is also well known for staging exhibitions of work on a wide range of diverse themes. The city also has a long-established (since 1845) art college, the Norwich University College of the Arts (formerly Norwich School of Art and Design), which is situated in the city centre. Additionally, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on the city's periphery at Colney was opened in 2001.
The Forum, designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners and opened in 2002 is a building designed to house the Millennium Library, a replacement for the Norwich Central Library building which burned down in 1994, and the regional headquarters and television centre for BBC East. The building provides a venue for exhibitions, concerts and events, although the city still lacks a dedicated concert venue.
The Millennium Library contains the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library, a collection of material about American culture and the American relationship with East Anglia, especially the role of the United States Air Force on UK air bases throughout the Second World War and Cold War. Much of the collection was lost in the 1994 fire, but the collection has been restored by contributions from many veterans of the war, both European and American.
Recent attempts to shed the backwater image of Norwich and market it as a popular tourist destination, as well as a centre for science, commerce, culture and the arts, have included the refurbishment of the Norwich Castle Museum and the opening of the Forum. The proposed new slogan for Norwich, England's Other City, has been the subject of much discussion and controversy—and it remains to be seen whether it will be finally adopted. A number of signs at the approaches to the city still display the traditional phrase—"Norwich—a fine city".
As part of ambitious aims to promote Norwich's heritage internationally, Norwich 12 has been launched—a collection of listed buildings in Norwich. The group consists of: Norwich Castle, Norwich Cathedral, The Great Hospital, The Halls – St Andrew's and Blackfriars', The Guildhall, Dragon Hall, The Assembly House, St James Mill, St John the Baptist RC Cathedral, Surrey House, City Hall and The Forum.
In February 2010, it was announced that Norwich was among four finalists for the prestigious title of UK City of Culture (a new designation), in 2013. However, on 15 July 2010, the city of Londonderry was pronounced the winner.
In May 2012 it was announced that Norwich would become England's first UNESCO City of Literature.
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Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fibre of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardy.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“... there are some who, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that to-morrow is necessarily better than to-day, may think that if culture is a good thing we shall infallibly be found to have more of it that we had a generation since; and that if we can be shown not to have more of it, it can be shown not to be worth seeking.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)