Zagreb: A European Capital?

s I left the main square in Zagreb – Trg bana Jelacica – the opening bars of Charpentier’s Te Deum bounced off the walls. Better known as the Eurovision Anthem, it seemed to symbolise the current status of relationships (nationally and internationally) within this country.
Not that this is the only link to Europe – and specifically – Charpentier’s home country of France. Yesterday I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Zagreb – the southern, probably 1960s/70s part of town. Now it was a little like sitting on the edge of a motorway or some dodgy estate:

But this reminded me in so many ways of Grenoble; not only the mountains surrounding the city but the attempts of the state to ‘give’ culture to the masses by planting cultural centres in the poorer suburbs (see Maison de la culture in France) in an attempt to ‘impose’ culture which is almost guaranteed to fail. The housing blocks reminded me of the Village Olympique in Grenoble. This area of brutalist architecture has the same issues – good and bad – that can be found on the edge of any European city.

And turning to the art gallery, this again seemed very multi-cultural; I mean take these two photos.

Spot the difference? One is the Carlston Hicks ‘slides’ in Tate Modern and the other taken in Zagreb. This isn’t the only link with the Gilbert and George exhibition that was at Tate Modern now in Zagreb.
Even the coffee is changing here; I had been warned that true Croatian coffee is strong and somewhat of the Turkish variety. This was what I was served at breakfast and was a sort of caffeinated dishwater. Everywhere else I had been served Italien-esque coffee. Again, evidence of a slight chipping away of national identity and culture.
All of this is fine and all of this reflective of how things are changing in the Croatian capital. And this is my worry as Europe becomes more powerful: will this mean a harmoniosed European culture? Or are we simply seeing the common, the ‘European’ elements of our culture more dominantly; a single ‘European Culture’ with multiple regional variations?