On Thursday 20 January, Minister of Culture Indrek Saar will start a visit to Switzerland, in the course of the which the minister of culture will participate in the Conference of European Ministers of Culture and the World Economic Forum. He will also open a concert in Zurich that is dedicated to the centenary of the Republic of Estonia.
At the Conference of European Ministers of Culture, the focus will be on the cultural dimension of the built environment and its importance to society’s economic, social and ecological development. Based on the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the Davos Declaration will also be ratified by the ministers of culture at the conference, which calls for every designed and built asset that is embedded in and relates to the natural environment, is to be understood as a single entity.
According to Minister of Culture Indrek Saar, it is noteworthy that for the first time, the topic of spatial design is raised at such a high political level. “We see cultural heritage as an important component of our identity. Along with preserving the existing heritage, we should place an ever greater value on the spatial environment being created today, because this will become the pillar of our cultural self-awareness in the future,” said Saar. “It is very important to reach an agreement on how to build so that it results in new value that will promote the culture and society as a whole,” Saar emphasised.
The Conference of European Ministers of Culture will take place in Davos from 21 to 22 January. The conference participants will include the ministers of culture from countries that are the signatories of the European Cultural Convention, as well as the observer states of the Council of Europe and international organisations. The last Conference of European Ministers of Culture was held in 2015 in Namur, Belgium. The World Economic Forum will open in Davos on 22 January.
On the eve of the conference on 20 January, the minister of culture will open a concert dedicated to the centenary of the Republic of Estonia at the Tonhalle concert hall in Zurich, where the Estonian Festival Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi will perform accompanied by violin soloist Viktoria Mullova.