The Academy Awards passed for another year, with all the finalists celebrating their achievements in making better places at a lunch in Westminster’s Church House. Finalists at all levels had demonstrated considerable achievement, often implemented over several decades, with the three in the City category explaining their back story at a seminar on the preceding evening. Helsinki is progressively planned, indeed a planner’s utopia, while Budapest is steadfastly recapturing its former glory, and eventual winner Glasgow exhibited imagination and leadership in moving from an industrial economy to a post industrial one, whilst also enhancing its sense of place.

Keynote speaker Wulf Daseking, who was also being installed as an Honorary Academician, underlined many of the key principles that have guided the progress of Freiburg (and will soon be seen in the English version of the Freiburg Charter).

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