The article discusses the relationships among institutions, culture and sustainable development, starting from the analysis of a planning experience that takes the regional culture as reference. It is analyzing a project of regional development, whose motor is the promotion of the culture in all their dimensions, to discuss the cultural conditions and the normative limits of the institutionalism in the promotion of the development. The chosen area for that exercise is Araripe, territory that is in the confluence of the borders of States of Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Piauí, in the Northeast of Brazil.
institutions; culture; sustainable development; regional planning; local governance; cultural basin