The Emergence of Industrial Heritage

The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the large scale de-industrialisation of Western Europe and North America(Altena and Linden,2002).This was also the pattern in many Eastern European countries in the 1990s after the fall of Communism and it continues to be a trend in many developed nations.The reasons for this are multiple—economic,technological,ideological and a result of various social trends such as the rise of environmental concern—and any attempt to provide substantive analysis of them is beyond the scope of this article.However,several observations are worthy of recognition.First,the vast majority of industrial plants that have closed over the past half a century were not preserved or protected.Rather,they have disappeared completely leaving dependent communities to re-adjust(some more successfully than others).It remains a truth that the majority of populations did not mourn the passing of many polluting,dangerous and hazardous industrial plants.In contrast to many other types of heritage,former industrial areas were often ignored and overlooked,left as ruins(Edensor,2005;DeSilvey,2017),viewed as ugly,leaving them at risk(Hoorn,2005;Jansen-Verbeke,1999;Brebbia et al.,2002),or marginalized by mainstream heritage discourse.Second,as the global economy broadly witnessed a shift in industrial production away from the old founding producers of Europe and North America to the new(and cheaper)industrialising economies of Asia and the developing world,there has been a reappraisal of what industrial heritage actually means within societies.Third,the future(indeed current)“producers”of industrial heritage are the industrial nations such as China and India who are only beginning to witness industrial decline in some sectors.And fourth,what this points to,is a complicated relationship that exists between different societies/communities and the remains and remnants of a former industrial culture.

What can be termed the first industrial heritage revolution(though it was more of an evolutionary process)emerged in the United Kingdom and other parts of Western Europe when large scale de-industrialisation took hold in the late 1960s and 1970s.The threat of demolition of industrial sites and artefacts dating back to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the heyday of mass industrial production in the nineteenth century was a spur to enthusiasts,local historians and pioneers of industrial archaeology to seek to protect and preserve these monuments to the greatest period of social and economic change.Largely a result of interventions of these enthusiasts,the stock of industrial heritage,not only in Europe but also around the world,has increased and protection of industrial sites and monuments through state systems of legislation is now the norm in many countries.For while many industrial landscapes were completely cleared,others were transformed into heritage objects,museums and attractions through restoration projects,tourism development and urban renewal(Hospers,2002).During the 1980s and 1990s across Europe,the number of industrial heritage sites listed on national heritage registers grew significantly,marking a formal recognition of their historical value.Moreover,this period witnessed a growth in the number of industrial heritage museums and related tourist attractions.The actual number of protected industrial sites is difficult to calculate as it ranges from whole settlements to single monuments and designations range from local and regional recognition to World Heritage status,but it is clear that the remains of the great industrial age of invention,large scale constructions and mass production is well marked.Trans-national initiatives such as the“European Route of Industrial Heritage”and“European Heritage Open Days”have further raised the profile of industrial legacies.Though great attention has been given to industrial heritage in Europe,attention has also been magnified in other parts of the world reflecting past colonial relationships and historic patterns of trade and commerce.In still developing economies,where the processes of de-industrialisation have been slower to emerge,the value of industrial heritage is also beginning to be recognised and many countries are looking to Europe for inspiration regarding models of protection,management and development.

Broadly speaking,we can identify four approaches to de-industrialisation,none of which are mutually exclusive and in a particular area all may operate at the same time.The first,which I term“deliberate forgetting”,is the wholesale emasculation of a previous industrial plant/factory,etc.Through land reclamation,landscaping and reuse of the site to the point where,to the untrained eye,it appears as if it was never a place of industrial production.The total reuse of an old industrial site remains the most common and the most rationale approach to dealing with industrial decline and economic renewal and was a normative default position for a countless number of sites over the years.This approach assumes that there is little heritage value in a site and certainly a better use or greater need for the land.At the other end of the spectrum,a second approach is that of museumification of an industrial plant whereby the site is almost entirely preserved as a monument.Of course,this is not a simple task and is invariably expensive even on the small scale.Preservation of a majority of the industrial form can be seen in examples such as at the former Ironworks at Völklingen in the Saarland in Germany which has been preserved and a World Heritage Site since 1994 after ceasing production in 1986.(https://www.daowen.com)

A third approach to dealing with defunct industrial works and a mechanism that has become increasingly common,involves the partial preservation of some of the structures and their reuse for different purposes.This adaptive reuse has become an important instrument in regeneration planning in many parts of Europe and allows for the integration of old industrial structures into otherwise new developments and the re-purposing of function.The memory of the industrial past is kept through the partial structural remains of a former site of production and has allowed for considerable architectural creativity allied to economic development actions.This approach can also be costly to implement but at least,out of industrial dereliction,new opportunities for revenue generation can be created.The re-purposing of old mills into apartments,the location of retail and leisure facilities within the shell of former factories are all examples of this reuse.Again,this approach is predicated on the recognition of some value,often recognised more in terms of commercial utility than for public education and heritage.Where neither public or private sectors recognise any value in previous industrial plants,then a fourth approach to dealing with the closure of industry is to leave a site to degenerate and stagnate.The lack of intervention is governed by a large number of variables but most can be tracked back to the absence of resources for any of the three approaches as given above.This on-going decay of industrial sites has been particularly acute in the former socialist states of Eastern Europe where finances amongst both public and private sectors has been extremely limited not only for re-development but also for the processes of demolition and land reclamation.This is not to say that such sites are devoid of heritage value or long-term opportunity but rather there is no short-term option than to leave them as derelict.

Despite many breakthroughs in the ways that societies now are able to appreciate and protect industrial heritage,there remain several major issues to be addressed for sites and the authorities that manage them.We can broadly divide these issues into those that relate to the continued production of industrial heritage and those that are a function of the ways in which they are consumed by wider society.