Regions
Asturias (Spain)
Asturias has been, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, an industrial region based on coal mining and steel industry. In the times of Francisco Franco's dictatorship it was the centre of Spain's steel industry. The coal mining industry has significantly decreased since the 1990s whereas the steel industry is still today subject to processes of deindustrialisation. Regional economic growth is below the Spanish average, however in recent years growth in the service industry has helped reduce Asturias's high rate of unemployment. The slow industrial decline of the 1980s and 1990s has served as a powerful source for artistic production. Over the last 15 years both the tangible and intangible traces of the industrial past have been essential for artists rooted in the working-class culture of Asturias. The industrial heritage has been reinterpreted through literature, audiovisual formats, music and the arts. In this context, the Asturian language has played an important role. Several artists refer to their regional identity while at the same time drawing parallels between this unofficial language and the often neglected industrial past.
South Wales (Wales)
South Wales was one of the key regions in Britain’s Industrial Revolution. By the end of the nineteenth early detail industry had been largely overtaken by coal production, which was to dominate until the post-war period. So important was the coal trade that by the early twentieth century Glamorganshire was one of the richest counties in Britain and the economist Stanley Jevons would claim that the region would form the centre of the British Empire. These predictions were disproved by the inter-war economic depression and post-war decline of the industry. Nevertheless, the environmental, urban and political landscape of the region was fundamentally shaped by industrialisation. As in the rest of the country the industrial archaeology movement in South Wales tried to save some of the remains in this industrial landscape. Two key industrial heritage sites in the former south Wales coalfield are Big Pit, part UNESCO World Heritage Site Blaenavon and the Rhondda Heritage Park, which have shaped the communicative and cultural memory of the south Wales’s industrial past in a post-industrial age.
Nord Pas-de-Calais (France)
The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin corresponds to the French part of the northwest European coal seam. It extends 120 km through the two departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais and constitutes a multilingual border region. Since the 18th century the region has been shaped by coal mining and textile industry and was one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution on the continent. After the Second World War, migrant workers from all over Europe came to the region, making up for population losses due to the war. In the 1970s, the leading coal and textile industries began to decline and unemployment rates increased rapidly. The region started a process of restructuring which still continues today. It has a rich mining heritage including pit heads, workers settlements and slag heaps that are representing the transformation of the cultural landscape. This postindustrial landscape has been declared UNESCO World Heritage in 2012.
Wallonia (Belgium)
In comparison to many other coal- and steel regions in the world, the industrial revolution in Wallonia began very early. Importing techniques from England, at the end of 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Wallonia was the first region in continental Europe that was industrialised. At the beginning of the 20th century, Wallonia was one of the most industrialised regions in the world. Processes of deindustrialisation from the 1960s to the 1980s left the region with a large repertoire of industrial heritage sites. Since the 1970s, local communities and property owners were able to apply for subsidies from the State to maintain industrial monuments and European Union funds further assisted the industrial heritage movement in preserving, for example, some of Wallonia’s largest coal mine complexes. Grand-Hornu, Bois-du-Luc, Bois du Cazier and Blegny nowadays are UNESCO-world-heritage listed. In contrast to the Ruhr, however, from the beginning of the new millenium the preservation of the region’s industrial heritage has received less official and public support, while the Wallonian steel industry is increasingly declining.
The Ruhr (Germany)
The Ruhr region experienced a period of early industrialisation from the mid-18th century and was most rapidly industrialised and urbanised around 1900. The landscape of the region became at that time dramatically transformed by the networks of the coal and steel industries spanning from the Rhine into Westphalia. The region’s urbanisation then followed industrial motives, leading to a pattern of cities and settlements that Christa Reicher describes as “Ruhrbanity”. The region thus only came into existence through industrialisation and its emerging identity has been strongly based on labour. With the beginning of the decline of the coal industry in the late 1950s and the steel crises from the 1970s, this identity was perceived as being at stake.From the late 1960s an industrial heritage movement emerged. State subsidies, following the so-called Rhenish capitalist model, allowed for a decelerated transition out of the coal sector. Only in 2018 will the Ruhr’s last coal mine close. Between 1989 and 1999 the state of North Rhine-Westphalia launched a large-scale urban renewal programme, the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park, which allowed for the construction of an unparalleled network of industrial heritage sites that today is still subject to further reconstruction and conservation measures. The representation of Germany’s former economic heartland has followed primarily (post-)industrial images; the importance of the Ruhr’s industrial heritage for the future, however, remains publicly contested. The most famous mining complex of the Ruhr, Zollverein, has been recognised as UNESCO world heritage and the region currently witnesses great efforts to extend this recognition to wider parts of the postindustrial landscape. The industrial heritage of the Ruhr, however, has hardly been recognised as national heritage, despite its key importance in the rise of Prussia, the first German nation-state and the Federal Republic of Germany.
Upper Silesia (Poland)
The Silesian Voivodship in southern Poland is the country’s most urbanised region. Its population of 4.7 million people lives in seventy-one towns. The Upper Silesian Coal Basin (Górnośląskie Zagłębie Węglowe) stretches into the Czech Republic. The process of industrialisation began in the 18th century and ended in 1989 with the collapse of the socialist regime in Poland. The structural change from the early 1990s resulted in the closure of almost half of the coal mines and a major decline in coal output. Employment in deep coal mining in the Silesian region fell by over 264,000 employees between 1990 and 2010. This industrial decline was paralleled by the deterioration of the social conditions and impoverishment of the urban communities once dependent on the plants. The domination of the industry and the complicated political situation of the Silesian borderland created in the past an identity based on work ethic and the belongin to a working-class community as well as on linguistic distinctiveness. The work places functioned as centres of everyday life and leisure activities for the workers and their families. Nowadays the question is being raised to what extent Silesian industrial heritage can promote a new identity. Events such as the opening of the new Silesian Museum in Katowice have demonstrated that industrial heritage is an arena of social struggle and can be studied as a contested junction of different collective visions of the past, present and future of the region.
The Morovian-Silesian Region (Czech Republic)
The Moravian-Silesian region (Ostrava region) is the former “Steel Heart” of Czechoslovakia and covered parts of the historic regions of Silesia and Moravia. In the Hapsburg era – before First Word War – it represented one of the more economically developed regions of the empire. Black coal mining in the region began already in the late 18th century and steel production commenced in the early 19th century, and by the end of the 19th century it was one of Central Europe’s most important industrial areas.The Moravian-Silesian region (Ostrava region) is the former “Steel Heart” of Czechoslovakia and covered parts of the historic regions of Silesia and Moravia. In the Hapsburg era – before the First Word War – it represented one of the economically most developed regions of the empire. Black coal mining in the region began already in the late 18th century and steel production commenced in the early 19th century, and by the end of the 19th century it was one of Central Europe’s most important industrial areas. Even though today the Czech Republic’s demand for coke and steel can still be almost completely covered by products from the Moravian-Silesian Region, it has not been able to recover from the tremendous industrial decline the region experienced with the breakup of Czechoslovakia and the dramatic changes in the economic and political system of the country. The closure of production centres left the region with a large number of industrial spaces and buildings and several successful initiatives to protect them: the National Technical Heritage List of the Czech Republic nowadays includes important industrial heritage sites of the region around Ostrava.
Northern Hungary (Hungary)
The Borsod industrial area around the city of Miskolc, frequently referred to as the “Hungarian Ruhr”, was Hungary’s most heavily industrialised district in the 20th century. However, its heavy industries were struck hard at the end of the century. The processes of deindustrialisation in the region were dramatic after the sudden change of Hungary’s political system in the 1990s and the extensive privatisation that followed.The material remains of coal mining and iron making were often not considered as valuable cultural heritage for the region. Numerous historical industrial sites were demolished in the past two decades and Miskolc, the leading city of the region, has sought eliminate its previous “steel city” label. Many voices in Northern Hungary pursue an alternative identity project, trying to leave the industrial past behind. Nevertheless, a local association has recently received the Europa Nostra Award for raising public awareness of the industrial past of Miskolc and on the re-presentation of its surviving built heritage. The prevailing public attitude to the industrial heritage of the Borsod industrial area is therefore best characterised as ambivalent: a peculiar mixture of negative and nostalgic memories of the increasingly distant industrial world of the past century.
Jiu Valley (Romania)
The Jiu Valley is the only region in Romania both completely urbanised and previously reliant on a single industry, which was coal mining. The development of deep coal mining started around the middle of the 19th century when workers from all parts of the Hapsburg Empire came to work in the mines, which were privately owned until 1948. Subsequently, all companies were nationalised by the Communist government followed by an industrial growth program which led to a rapid expansion of the Jiu Valley in the second half of the 20th century. Since the revolution in 1989 production and consumption of coal in Romania decreased. A lack of re-investment, deteriorating infrastructure, mine closures and massive layoffs, environmental degradation, and political and cultural isolation from the rest of Romania followed. The industrial heritage of Jiu Valley coal mining is in active decline, shaped by diverse postsocialist political, economic, and legal circumstances. Current and former mine workers have intimacy and understanding of regional industry, but due to deindustrialisation, are increasingly alienated from and economically challenged by mining’s decline. At the same time, property owners, officials, and regional entrepreneurs mainly lack concern, seeing industrial heritage sites as emblematic of the region’s outmoded industrial relations and mainly worthy for diverse commodification. Despite the general erosion of heritage, the developing Valley identity also contains the seeds of its revival. Already some small scale attempts to save certain structures and sites associated with the history of mining have been organised in a few places. These have succeeded when local artists and intellectuals function as mediators between the Valley identity groups. As these show, Jiu Valley industrial heritage can serve regional development.
Donbass (Ukraine)
The multiethnic coal mining region of the Donets Basin became heavily industrialised towards the end of the 19th century. The development of Russian railway system was strongly dependent on the resources of the region. At the beginning of the Second World War large parts of regional industry and labour force were shifted to Siberia to protect the production from the German attacks. After the war hundred thousands of Russian workers came to reconstruct the region and economy. With the end of the Soviet Union and the region's belonging to the new Ukrainian state, in the 1990s it experienced a dramatic economic downturn, followed by social and ethnic tensions that have recently aggravated. Since 2014 pro-Russian separatists and pro-Ukrainian forces are at war with each other. In comparison to the Ruhr, industrial heritage initiatives have had very little impact on the regional identity in Donbass. In 2012 and 2013, however, modelled on the Extraschicht festival in the Ruhr and the Industriada in Upper Silesia, Donbass celebrated the "Druga Zima" (second shift), a "night of industrial heritage".
Northern Kyūshū (Japan)
Northern Kyūshū is one of the oldest industrial regions in Japan and since July 2015 a core area of the newest UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Japan titled “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution” centering on the early industrialisation in Japan. During the industrial revolution in Japan starting in the middle of the 19th century, the development of coal mining in Northern Kyūshū and the erection of the first modern Japanese steel plant in 1901 turned the region into one of the hubs of Japan’s industrial rise and drew a large number of workers and their families into the area. New towns and settlements sprang up besides older cities, which also experienced rapid population growth. Even though smaller in scale and more fragmented than the Ruhr region, the region was often called “The Japanese Ruhr” (Nihon no rūrū chihō). Similar to the Ruhr the region was deeply affected by the decline of the coal industry, which started in the late 1950s, and by the impact of the oil shocks of the 1970s and 1980s on the steel production and affiliated industries. The ensuing deindustrialisation led to various efforts to restructure existing industries and create new regional policies. The preservation of industrial heritage did not play a role in these efforts until the late 1990s. Since then remnants of coal mines, blast-furnaces and harbour structures have been placed on the national preservation list.
Newcastle and Hunter Valley (Australia)
The Newcastle-Hunter Valley region, located on the east coast of Australia in the state of New South Wales, was a focus for mining and industrial development from the beginnings of colonial occupation in the early 1800s. By 1900 the river port of Newcastle had become a major site for the shipment of black coal, and also a nodal point for industrial and manufacturing development. This peaked in the 1970s, and thereafter the region experienced a steady decline in mining and industrial activity, although coal mining in the Hunter Valley boomed again after 2001 and Newcastle remains one of the larges coal ports in the world. The most important industrial site in New South Wales, the Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) iron and steelworks in Newcastle, is now wasteland in the cultural landscape, while a vigorous heritage group with limited recognition and resources attempts to preserve the tangible and intangible heritage of that workplace, which produced steel from 1915 to 1999. As the steelworks example suggests, industrial heritage developed an uneasy and ambivalent relationship to regional identity in the course of the deindustrialisation processes in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. Some cultural projects and representations celebrated the region’s industrial age and its legacies, while others sought to carve out a new post-industrial niche for the city that distanced regional identity from its industrial origins. The situation in the region mirrors a wider state and federal policy environment where industrial heritage is only partially recognised and poorly represented.
Greater Pittsburgh (United States of America)
Initially a commercial city, Pittsburgh became known as one of America’s Steel Cities. It became an industrial city in the 19th century, notable for its glass, iron, steel, aluminum, and railroad equipment production. Cheap energy from local deposits of coal and river and rail transportation were essential elements in its rise. While wartime demands boosted Pittsburgh industry temporarily, at the end of the Second World War the city suffered from industrial decline, heavy smoke pollution, deteriorated housing and infrastructure, and poor municipal services. In 1945, business and political leaders launched what became known as the Pittsburgh Renaissance, the world's first attempt to renew a major industrial city. The movement focused on the goals of environmental improvement, downtown renewal, and transportation revitalisation. In 1977, the second Renaissance was launched which continued the renewal of the city centre. Since the 1980s city and region were tried to be revitalsed through high tech, education, and medical initiatives. Beginning in the late 1970s, an increasing number of residents and community leaders saw in metropolitan Pittsburgh’s industrial heritage and newly cleared riverfront brownfields as as great opportunity for urban renewal. Historically-themed sites, heritage-based building rehabilitation, and riverfront trails subsequently sought to nurture a sense of regional identity, revitalise “authentic” neighbourhoods, and enhance the area’s reputation among the highly-educated professionals that urban theorist Richard Florida later called the “creative class.” Drawing inspiration from Pittsburgh, local officials, business owners, and preservationists in the region, for example in Homestead, Pennsylvania and Wheeling, West Virginia, secured the designation of industrial sites as National Heritage Areas and achieved some success in remaking their declining city centres. Despite this status, however, these communities struggled to mobilise the economic, cultural and political resources necessary to translate this post-industrial urban vision into reality.