Volume 12 (2018): Edizione 1 (June 2018)

So far, ‘Industrial Culture’ as a term has been widely used as a synonym for industrial heritage. Only recently, a re-interpretation of industrial culture has been discussed, which goes beyond heritage issues by including contemporary or upcoming cultural and creative resources, addressing directly the future development opportunities of regions. Whilst some aspects of this conceptual framework of industrial culture are already applied in some places, there is no comprehensive outline available yet. In the academic field so far no coherent concept can be found. The aim of this thematic issue is to foster a discussion on the state-of-the-art regarding the conceptualisation of industrial culture. This thematic issue has gathered contributions that respond to the following questions: the different understandings of the concept of industrial culture; the role of industrial culture in the context of a post-industrial society and a knowledge-based economy; the connection between industrial culture, regional development and regional identity, as well as the inter-linkages between traditional industrial sectors and creative industries. The contributions in this issue focus strongly on the connection between the industrial past, present and future, bringing together different academic view points on the topic. The issue maps out current research topics and poses new questions on dealing with the wide topic of industrial culture.

In the last 30 years the global supply chains and containerization transformed the world of production and stretched it across the globe. With the exodus of Process and Assembly (P&A) segment of industrial production from the developed countries, the “global north” not only lost the production capacity itself, but more importantly, the know-how in making that is a basis of industrial culture.

The neoliberal attitudes in industrial production were the main force behind slow but persistent abandonment of the automotive industry in Detroit, or closing down of the coal and iron industry in the Ruhr region in Germany. Contemporary urban renewal strategies of industrial areas rely on injection of tourism based on design, popular art, cultural and leisure activities, like the Emscher Landschaftspark in Ruhr region, Germany. However, tourism-based redevelopment is economically questionable in small industrial towns. For such areas we need to envision alternative agencies that industrial past and industrial production can offer. One of the most underrated aspects of industrial production is the know-how imbedded in the P&A segment of industrial process. We argue for the industrial production know-how as a relevant part of the new innovation economy of small towns and of the local culture. This paper will trace the capacity of industrial production for culture-making by referring to production-innovation models described in regional geography. Firstly the paper identifies the P&A know-how worth reshoring. Secondly, it describes two models of neo-industrialization in order to thirdly identify a new hybrid type of a regional model and its culture.

This descriptive paper outlines the post-industrial setting and industrial heritage in both a concrete case – south-western Poland – and some general respects, with the aim of contributing to the available knowledge about the contemporary post-industrial areas in Central Eastern Europe. To produce such an outline and to offer such a contribution, the paper offers an overview of the changes that happened in Poland since the transformation of 1989/90 with the special focus put on the industrial sector in the small- and medium-sized towns in the south-western border region of Poland. Moreover, the paper describes how the political and economic changes have impacted industry in Poland immediately after the transformation, as well as how the evolution of the political and economic situation has been shaping the industrial sector along the years until today. Further, to solidify the broad background of post-industrial regions, the paper touches upon topics that are more specific and interconnected: location of industry, employment rate changes, regional development policies, local development inequalities, and vocational schooling system. The most specific descriptions in the paper focus on the industrial heritage in the towns and cities in the region of Lower Silesia. Apart from reviewing the industrial history of Poland and of the selected western regions, this paper looks into the future by commenting on the transition between the so-called 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 industry phases and discusses whether small- and medium-sized towns in the Polish border areas are able to become connected to the future industrial network.

This paper unfolds around an empirical experiment, which aimed to reveal the meaning of industrial culture and place attachment of local inhabitants of Chemnitz. The central argument of the article is that industrial culture is usually understood in a historicizing and aestheticizing way, fuelled by the possibilities to valorise the legacies of the age of industrialization and its persistent artefacts and structures for marketing or musealization purposes. This frequently observable urban strategy neglects the memories, experiences and emotions of local inhabitants, and thus fails to support positive identification processes with connection to the industrial past of a specific place. This paper elaborates a conceptual definition of industrial culture as a complex approach with tangible and intangible dimensions, various temporal layers and multiple, sometimes controversial narratives. It discusses the role of industrial culture for regional and local image building and place related identity formation and demonstrates – reporting from an empirical experiment–, how individual counter-narratives can be detected, visualized and transferred and thus can increase reflexivity of society and support regional identity processes.

The paper aims to unfold the intangible elements that form the industrial culture based on the analysis of two former mining communities from Romania. Research conducted in 2014 in two former mining cities located in the northern part of the country highlights their particular characteristics and the strategies employed by individuals to cope with mine closure. The research found a strong occupational identity among former miners, which affected the way they perceived themselves, the surrounding environment and the opportunities they had after restructuring. The self-perception of what people could work hindered the economic redevelopment process. We found that after living and working for many years in a state-led regime, people expected the state to take care of them and to create new jobs in their communities. Even though many stakeholders acknowledged the importance of preserving industrial heritage for collective memory, few projects were implemented, and no mining museum was built. In both cities, a large number of people migrated abroad or returned to their hometowns to compensate for the job scarcity. Miners coming from other regions to work in younger mining communities experienced a lower level of community integration.

Old industrial cities abound with extensive infrastructures, which however no longer suit the economic purposes, for which they were originally built. However either their demolition or a complete rebuilding of new is often not a viable option, and thus the issue of their smart reuse emerged in urban studies. In this paper we combine literature on restructuring, brownfields, and industrial heritage to assess their significance both as a barrier and asset for future urban development. The main aim is to provide municipalities with an overview of the range of their possible reuses, and problems they might face in doing so. Furthermore, the selected examples show that contemplating new use should be guided by assessment of intrinsic features of the structures on one hand, and by general global trends on other. This new combination of the two might render the new use competitive. For this sake a case study of the old industrial city of Ostrava is employed, as this issue has been particularly pronounced given the city’s strong historical specialisation in heavy industry.