Routes of Industrial Heritage: On the Animation of Sedentary Objects

Authors

  • Torgeir Rinke Bangstad Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.113279

Keywords:

Industrial heritage, route, networks, Route Industriekultur, site, ERIH

Abstract

In this article, the recent proliferation of cultural heritage routes and networks will be analyzed as an attempt to animate and revitalize idle artefacts and landscapes. With a specific focus on the sedentary, immobile sites of former industrial production, it will be claimed that the route is an appropriate and understandable way of dealing with industrial sites that have lost their stable place in a sequence of productions. If the operational production site is understood as a place of where, above all, function and efficiency guide the systematic interaction between labour, raw material and technology, then the absence of this order is what makes an abandoned factory seem so isolated and out of place. It becomes disconnected from the web of production of which it was part and from which it gained its meaning and stability. In this regard, it makes sense to think of industrial heritage routes as an effort to bring the isolated site back into place. Following Barbara Kirshenblatt Gimblett, we have come to think of cultural heritage as an opportunity that is granted to artifacts, lifestyles and places of a ’second life’. Industrial heritage routes occasion such a reanimation of former industrial sites according to the principles cultural tourism, place production, professional networking and best practice learning. As a mode of operation, the route has some potential advantages over the bounded, site-specific approach. It extends the historic context of the site in question beyond the isolated, geographical location. Orchestrating sites in a wider heritage network is a way of emphasizing a notion of culture that stresses interaction, movement and encounters with that which lies beyond the local. It may also grant heritage professionals an opportunity to work in closer relation to what goes on elsewhere.

References

Assmann, Aleida & Conrad, Sebastian (2010): “Introduction”, Assman, Aleida & Conrad, Sebastian (eds): Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-16.

Breglia, Lisa (2006): Monumental Ambivalence: The Politics of Heritage, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Clark, Kate (2005): “From Valves to Values: Industrial Archaeology and Heritage Practice”, Eleanor Conlin Casella & James Symonds (eds): Industrial Archaelogy: Future Directions. New York: Springer 95-119.

Council of Europe (1998): On the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg: CoE.

Edensor, Tim (2005a): Industrial Ruins: Spaces, Aesthetics and Materiality, Oxford: Berg. [Read this article]

Edensor, Tim (2005b): “Waste Matter - The Debris of Industrial Ruins and the Disordering of the Material World”, Journal of Material Culture, 10:3, 311-332.

European Commission (2011): Promotion of Trans-national Thematic Tourism Products in the European Union as Means of Sustainable Tourism Development, Brussels: European Commision, Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General.

European Route of Industrial Heritage (2001): The Master Plan, Duisburg: ERIH Secreteriat.

Fairclough, Graham (2008): “New Heritage, an Introductory Essay - People, Landscape and Change”, Graham Fairclough, Rodney Harrison, John H. Jameson Jnr. & John Schofield (eds): The Heritage Reader, London and New York: Routledge, 297-312.

Föhl, Axel & Höhmann, Rolf (2010): Taming the Waterfalls: Rjukan/Notodden and Odda/Tyssedal Industrial Heritage Sites, Oslo: Mission Report by request of Riksantikvaren.

Gibson, Lisanne & Pendlebury, John (2009): “Introduction: Valuing Historic Environments”, Lisanne Gibson & John Pendlebury (eds): Valuing Historic Environments, Farnham: Ashgate, 1-16

Hartmut, John & Mazzoni, Ira (2005): “Unbehagen an der Industriekultur”, Hartmut, John & Mazzoni, Ira (eds): Industrie- und Technikmuseen im Wandel: Perspektiven und Standortbestimmungen, Transcript Verlag: Bielefeld, 13-19.

Hall, Stuart (1996): “Introduction: Who Needs Identity?”, Stuart Hall & Paul du Gay (eds): Questions of Cultural Identity, London: Sage, 1-19.

International Council on Monuments and Sites (2008): The ICOMOS Charter on Cultural Routes, Québec: ICOMOS.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara (1998): Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Heritage, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara (2006): "World Heritage and Cultural Economics", Ciraj Rassool, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Gustavo Buntinx & Ivan Karp (eds): Museum Frictions: Public Cultures / Global Transformations, Durham: Duke University Press, 162-202.

Lindström, Ulrica (2006): “From Abandoned Industrial Area to Tourist Destination”, Good Practice Projects, INTERREG.

Lowenthal, David (2009): “Patrons, Populists, Apologists: Crises in Museum Stewardship”,Lisanne Gibson & John Pendlebury (eds): Valuing Historic Environments, Farnham: Ashgate, 19-32.

Macdonald, Sharon (2008): Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond, London and New York: Routledge.

Macdonald, Sharon (2009): “Reassembling Nurenmberg, Reassembling Heritage”, Journal of Cultural Economy, 2:1&2, 117-134. [Read this article]

Raines, Anne Brownley (2011): “Wandel durch (Industrie) Kultur [Change through (industrial) culture]: conservation and renewal in the Ruhrgebiet”, Planning Perspectives, 26:2, 183 - 207. [Read this article]

Riles, Annelise (2000): The Network Inside Out, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Samuel, Raphael (2008): “Politics”, Graham Fairclough, Rodney Harrison, John H Jameson Jnr. & John Schofield (eds): The Heritage Reader, London: Routledge, 274-293.

rban, Greg (2001): Metaculture : How Culture Moves Through the World, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Viaene, Patrick (2005): “Das Industrielle Erbe Rheinland-Westfalens: Eine flämische Perspektive“, Industriedenkmalpflege und Geschichtskultur, 2005:1, 38-40.

Downloads

Published

2011-10-25

How to Cite

Rinke Bangstad, T. (2011) “Routes of Industrial Heritage: On the Animation of Sedentary Objects”, Culture Unbound, 3(3), pp. 279–294. doi: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.113279.

Issue

Section

Theme: Exhibiting Europé