No siesta in the sun room
With its magazine *Piazza Riforma*, the city of Lugano is breaking new ground in communication.
The goals are ambitious, the will to shape the city is remarkable despite all the resistance: with the so-called Grandi Progetti, Lugano, the economic engine of Ticino and the third largest financial center in Switzerland, is making itself fit for the future. Major projects such as incorporations, the LAC cultural center, a modern mobility concept around the new northern access tunnel and plans for a new district close to the city center with an exhibition and congress center are changing the city. Piazza Riforma is accompanying this change, taking a close look, allaying fears and making connections clear. It has been going out to all households in the city every two months for almost a year, with a total circulation of 42,000 copies.
With Piazza Riforma, Lugano is breaking new ground: communicative change management that creates participation and consensus through a special mix of topics and offers is not usually part of a municipality's standard repertoire. You won't find reports on the commissioning of new ticket machines or impressions of a business delegation's trip to Moscow, as they often appear in the self-portrayal of municipalities, in Piazza Riforma. The magazine wants to set topics, other topics. A report on the night shift of the municipal police is just as interesting as the questions of how best to get around the city on foot or why it makes economic sense to invest 180 million francs in a new cultural center. A thematic focus on the new regional development office, an interview with a well-known trend researcher on the city tourism of the future and a portrait of a fellow citizen suffering from insomnia who has spent his nights reading for years are all presented in Piazza Riforma in loose succession. And because Lugano has not yet lost its human scale (and does not want to lose it), you will discover many a face that you have just seen well photographed in the magazine in the real Piazza della Riforma, the town hall square with its many cafés.
The city and its people can be rediscovered in the journalistically prepared texts, the images by (local) photographers and the work of (local) illustrators. The magazine is characterized by openness and a willingness to engage in dialogue, always linking the dynamics of change back to people's concrete problems and questions. Embedded in a high-quality, credible and at the same time fresh medium, information becomes comprehensible and can be experienced as an identification offer through broad contextualization. Poster campaigns, radio broadcasts on the magazine topics and soon an interactive online platform with audio texts, among other things, ensure target group-specific follow-up communication. Piazza Riforma thus helps to tie centrifugal forces in a capillary, highly differentiated and heterogeneous system such as a city back to the center and to sustainably increase the acceptance of change.
Piazza Riforma is published by the Lugano City Council. The concept was developed by the Ticino CP service provider comunicAzione, which is also responsible for project management. The editor-in-chief is Eleonora Bourgoin, the city's communications officer, and Piazza Riforma is graphically designed by Studio Ackermann dal Ben.
Eckhard Sohns
With Piazza Riforma, Lugano is breaking new ground: communicative change management that creates participation and consensus through a special mix of topics and offers is not usually part of a municipality's standard repertoire. You won't find reports on the commissioning of new ticket machines or impressions of a business delegation's trip to Moscow, as they often appear in the self-portrayal of municipalities, in Piazza Riforma. The magazine wants to set topics, other topics. A report on the night shift of the municipal police is just as interesting as the questions of how best to get around the city on foot or why it makes economic sense to invest 180 million francs in a new cultural center. A thematic focus on the new regional development office, an interview with a well-known trend researcher on the city tourism of the future and a portrait of a fellow citizen suffering from insomnia who has spent his nights reading for years are all presented in Piazza Riforma in loose succession. And because Lugano has not yet lost its human scale (and does not want to lose it), you will discover many a face that you have just seen well photographed in the magazine in the real Piazza della Riforma, the town hall square with its many cafés.
The city and its people can be rediscovered in the journalistically prepared texts, the images by (local) photographers and the work of (local) illustrators. The magazine is characterized by openness and a willingness to engage in dialogue, always linking the dynamics of change back to people's concrete problems and questions. Embedded in a high-quality, credible and at the same time fresh medium, information becomes comprehensible and can be experienced as an identification offer through broad contextualization. Poster campaigns, radio broadcasts on the magazine topics and soon an interactive online platform with audio texts, among other things, ensure target group-specific follow-up communication. Piazza Riforma thus helps to tie centrifugal forces in a capillary, highly differentiated and heterogeneous system such as a city back to the center and to sustainably increase the acceptance of change.
Piazza Riforma is published by the Lugano City Council. The concept was developed by the Ticino CP service provider comunicAzione, which is also responsible for project management. The editor-in-chief is Eleonora Bourgoin, the city's communications officer, and Piazza Riforma is graphically designed by Studio Ackermann dal Ben.
Eckhard Sohns
