Towards a European Heritage of Industry

With the publication of the first issue of “Patrimonio Industriale”, the magazine of the Italian Association for the Industrial Archeological Heritage (AIPAI), we saw the start of a column – Heritage Forum – that was aimed at taking stock of conservation practices and the advancement of the industrial heritage in Europe. The column, which appeared regularly and covered the period April 2010 (issue 5) to April 2014 (issue 12/13), played host to a series of contributions from senior foreign experts, who have given a broad overview of the problems and prospects for safeguarding and reusing industrial archeological assets in their own countries (Croatia, Spain, France, Germany, Britain, and the Czech Republic). The experts who were invited to contribute were given a schematic list of the issues to be explored: an overview of the associations active in defending the industrial heritage, systems for listing and documenting industrial archeological sites, the legislative and regulatory framework for their protection, a selection of best practices for the reuse and conversion of abandoned industrial structures, etc. Their contributions offer a very wide-ranging picture, and a very topical picture, of the state of play as regards the industrial heritage in their own countries. This allows us to see how far policies aimed at protecting and safeguarding this heritage converge on a common core set of principles, both practical and theoretical.

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