Culture and finance in a globalised world – An uneasy relation

At the turn of the century, the role of culture in society is changing. One facet of this change is the relation between culture and finance. Globalisation has led to an increasing competition between financial centres worldwide and culture has become one determinant of competitiveness. But, culture is also adapting to finance in that it responds to the requirements of globalisation and to the needs and desires of a place's financial community. The paper analyses these two sides of interaction between finance and culture emphasising the role of collective memory and cultural identity for the representation of financial centers and taking a closer look at the role of the arts among the variety of forms of cultural practices. Then the attention is drawn to two recent phenomena which, at first sight, seem to reduce the future importance of financial places and thereby also perhaps their influence on the culture world: The ever-increasing proportion of financial decisions made in so-called 'non-places' and the role of finance in a virtual world.