Abstract
The presented book examines the industrial heritage of the Ore Mountain foothills, a heavily urbanized old industrial region located in north-western Czechia between the towns of Klášterec nad Ohří and Děčín, and its role in the future development of the region. The first part of the book introduces the processes behind the emergence of the phenomenon nowadays referred to as industrial heritage.
It is stressed that instead of the popular notion of the Industrial Revolution, it is necessary to speak rather of several waves of modernisation or industrialisation, under the influence of which significant social, economic, and environmental changes have taken place since the end of the 18th century (or since the mid-19th century in Central Europe). These changes are subsequently demonstrated on the territory of Czechia (historically Czech Lands), and particularly in the Ore Mountain foothills, which became one of the cores of industrialisation both from the perspective of the whole Czech Lands, as well as in the broader Central- and Eastern-European context.
The importance of industry for the region and beyond have started to decline with post-socialist transformation since 1989. In that time, the cumulated problems of industrial enterprises that were obscured or instrumentally mitigated by the socialist regime, fully emerged, and many enterprises proved not viable in the new conditions of global economic integration.
This eventually triggered the process of de-industrialisation. The de-industrialisation process causes serious problems typical of the so-called old industrial regions around the world ? including an increase in unemployment rates and other social problems related to the decline in industrial production.
As a consequence of the transformation of the economy of the entire Ústí nad Labem Region in the first two decades after the 1989, almost a quarter of jobs in the region disappeared, with the town of Děčín facing the greatest relative decline. Although the labour market situation has stabilised since then, numerous economic and social problems stemming from the region's post-industrial transformation still persist.
It is clear that these problems have deep roots, and it will require substantial time and the mobilisation of internal and external actors to address the related challenges. Yet, the previous waves of industrialisation left behind many traces along the foothills of the Ore Mountains, both intangible (e.g., work habits and know-how, identities of workers, traditional brands and names of products and enterprises) and tangible (e.g., transformed landscape, mining areas, factory buildings, traditional products).
The team of authors of the book examined to what extent these traces can be used for the social and economic development of the region. On the one hand, a region's industrial legacy can be a barrier to development, but if it is creatively portrayed and sustainably uses the local resources that support it, it can also be an element that makes the region unique and attractive to new investment or residents.
In order to recognise these artefacts as valuable and useful for the development of the region, it is necessary for the regional society to attribute a certain value to them, thus making them an industrial heritage. In the second part of the book, we used mix-method approach to explore social values and perceptions related to industrial heritage.
Industrial heritage is defined in this book as the remains of industrial culture, both tangible and intangible, which enjoy some degree of formal or informal protection from society. More than two hundred sites in the Ore Mountain foothills have been identified as the region's architectural industrial heritage.
However, these buildings are in various states - from sensitively restored industrial buildings to buildings with serious structural problems that are likely to succumb to demolition soon. This finding indicates varying values assigned to these sites and options to overcome institutional barriers in their restoration and adaptive use.
On the basis of semi-structured interviews with various actors in the study area, we identified four basic discourses of how society deals with its industrial heritage - idyllic, pragmatic, problematic, and revitalization discourses. The idyllic discourse points to the rich pre-war industrial history of the region without implications for the current use of the industrial heritage for the development of the region.
Another discourse was a pragmatic one, represented mainly by traditional regional companies, which see industrial heritage (often in their control) as a source of economic prosperity. The problematic discourse dominates among representatives of public administration and is focused mainly on the infrastructure created during the industrial era and industrial architecture, which are often perceived as a development problem of cities, or as brownfields without significant historical value.
On the other hand, the revitalization discourse is largely represented by representatives of the non-governmental sector and is characterized by a positive perception of the industrial heritage and its potential for the development of the region and changing its image. The perception of industrial artefacts as heritage can also be significantly shaped by the media, which is why a media analysis of the image of industry in the study area was carried out.
It was found that various problematic cases and accidents related to industries are predominantly presented, and only few articles are devoted to the use of industrial buildings for new purposes so as to preserve their historical value. Based on the public questionnaire survey, it was found that among the residents in the study area, industrial heritage does not markedly figure as a source of regional identity.
In this respect reference to industry has appeared only rarely as the constitutive source of regional identity, and if it has, it was more likely with reference to the remediation of environmental damage caused by industrial production, especially during socialism. Such examples mainly include reclamation of brown coal mining sites and environmental improvement in the Ústí nad Labem region in general.
Based on these findings, the last part of the book focuses on reviewing and testing novel creative approaches to revitalising industrial heritage. The role of adaptive use of the industrial heritage in the development of old industrial regions and the social, economic, and environmental benefits of brownfield regeneration are highlighted.
This is demonstrated by both the good- and bad- practice examples in the Ore Mountain foothill region and beyond. In this respect, the role of actors at local, regional, national, and transnational levels, is essential, as their efforts and creativity can help change the perception of industrial artefacts in the region.
As an example of a new creative representation of industrial heritage, the activities of students of the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of J. E.
Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem are presented. They perceive the industrial elements of the region as a source of inspiration, stimulating tourism development, improvement of public spaces, or incentivising new business plans for creative industries.