About Me

Lia Ghilardi

Lia is a creative polymath based in London. As the founder and director of Noema, a globally-minded organisation, she is at the forefront of reimagining cities through her unique approach of combining place and community mapping with strategic cultural planning. With over twenty-five years of experience, she regularly consults with mayors, urban designers, architects, and arts organisations, offering advice on how to create vibrant, cohesive, and sustainable places. Her innovative solutions have helped over 100 cities worldwide become more liveable, attractive, and culturally diverse.

A sought-after public speaker, Lia engages audiences with her insights on studying the DNA of cities to implement equitable cultural regeneration. She regularly lectures at universities across Europe and delivers keynotes at major conferences and events. From 2007 to 2013, she shaped future leaders in the field as a module leader at City University, London, where she taught the transformative “Culture and Regeneration” course within the MA in Culture, Policy, and Management.

In 2012 she was nominated as an Academician of the Academy of Urbanism, a network of influential thinkers, professionals and decision-makers working to create a better living conditions for people in towns and cities. More recently she became a Fellow of  the Royal Society for the arts, manufactures and commerce (RSA), a global network of change-makers enabling people, places and the planet to flourish in harmony.
For publications and consultancy reports email lia.ghilardi@btinternet.com or fill in the Contact Form
Samples of her work are also on  Academia.edu or ResearchGate

 

Collaborations

Below is a selection of associates that Lia has worked and continues to work with.

  • She works regularly with Paris and Stockholm-based EGA (Erik Giudice Architects) on cultural masterplans, and on brainstorming innovative solutions to making cities more liveable, vibrant and intercultural.
  • She has recently started a new collaboration with Stockholm-based architectural practice Warm in the Winter on a pilot project for the New European Bauhaus.
  • With Malmö-based architectural practice AIM (Architecture Is Made), together with architect and researcher Nils Bjorling (Chalmers University) she developed proposals and worked on cultural masterplans challenging conventional approaches to place making in Swedish cities such as Kiruna, Göteborg, Helsingborg, Skövde and Grästorp.
  •  She works regularly with Malmö based urbanist and winner of the 23-24 Europe under40 Award for the Best Emerging Architects and Designers, Gustav Magnusson. See Gustav info and examples of projects developed together with Lia here
  • With Glasgow-based cultural planning social enterprise specialists Fablevision, she has delivered neighbourhood interventions and artist-led community projects since the early 1990s.

Among the institutions and organisations she works with is the British Council (Creative Economy Unit), delivering workshops and presentations, policy advice to countries outside Europe, and mapping toolkits. With the European Union, she has worked as both Lead and Thematic expert for URBACT I & II projects, and more recently with URBACT III (Kairos project).

Over the past seven years  she has established a collaboration with the OECD in Italy (The Trento Centre for Local Development) and Trentino School of Management for the facilitation and delivery of a Summer Academy on Cultural & Creative Industries in Local Development. Finally, in 2022 she was asked to join the team of experts for the Eurocities programme Cultural Heritage in Action.