Reflections from The Three Bells: S6#10
Title
Civilization is maintenance…
Contributor
Adrian Ellis
In this latest Reflections, Adrian Ellis looks at the maintenance challenge facing cultural institutions, the funding structures that have allowed backlogs to grow, and the consequences of building without planning for upkeep.
Date of Recording
9 September 2026
Date of Publication
8 October 2026
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THEME MUSIC
[00:00:05]
Adrian Ellis: Hello, and welcome to The Three Bells. This podcast is part of the sixth season produced by AEA Consulting for the Global Cultural Districts Network. The focus is, as always, on the relationship between cultural and urban life, and the ways in which cultural life contributes to the vitality of cities and vice versa. This series and supporting materials can be found at www.thethreebells.net. And if you like our content, please subscribe and give us a positive review on your favourite podcast listening platform.
I am Adrian Ellis, chair of GCDN and the director of AEA Consulting, and this is Reflections from The Three Bells.
I want to talk today about a decidedly unglamorous topic: building maintenance – how we handle it, mishandle it, and our compulsive habit of building cultural institutions without deciding how to keep them intact.
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External Links
French Senate – Christophe Leribault on the future of the Louvre Sénat
Cour des comptes – The public establishment of the Louvre Museum
UK Public Accounts Committee report on museums, security and resilience
DCMS — England’s cultural infrastructure: repair, maintenance and renewal
U.S. Government Accountability Office — deferred maintenance of federal buildings
About our Contributor
Adrian Ellis is the founder of AEA Consulting (1990) and the Global Cultural Districts Network (2013). He has worked in senior management and as a board member in both museums and the performing arts and as a strategy consultant to leading clients in the cultural, public, and business sectors around the world. +
