If certain cultural routes topics suggested to the Council of Europe raise for the Institute only questions of European extension, of finding pilot actions, or of conforming to the Rules of the cultural routes, the topic of the industrial heritage proved much more complex to prepare.

The proposals were numerous, often related to initiatives concerning the industrial society and in particular migration phenomena, and they raised certain broad questions about the conservation and valorisation of a recent heritage, often of great scope. After a long analysis phase, the topic was integrated by the Council of Europe in May 2004.

Industry in Saarland.

concerns

Many reflections on this subject were indeed forwarded by various international institutions, in connection with the protection and re-employment of heritage, its classification, even its inclusion in the World Heritage List.

The extension of industrial crisis made an increasingly large number of local authorities adopt development strategies based on the use of this heritage for both cultural and economic ends.

These same communities found themselves facing the need of not giving a nostalgic or solely museum image to these activities; on the contrary, they had to ensure their survival and development within a specific framework.

Hydroelectric plan in Vianden, Luxembourg. Photo MTP.

regrouping

The Heritage Service of Andorra worked for four years on the topic of the Iron Routes in the Pyrenees and proposed during various successive meetings a work structure, a true model for all the routes included under the general topic. For each route there will thus be set up a scientific expedition, a conservation and a diffusion mission; the latter comprises a double goal: acquaintance and first-hand impressions by means of an interpretation centre and installation of a new product related to cultural tourism in the form of a route aiming at the discovery of the country or of various territories. A network structure is then established, connecting the Council of Europe, the European Institute of Cultural Routes, and the partners of the various roads:

The structure of the networks can take two forms, comprising working groups and generating a Scientific Committee, while being organised by subject (mines, iron and steel industry, textile, ceramics, wood, etc.) and/or by territorial dimension (Central Europe, South-Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Baltic countries), with regional variation for each. This happens without forgetting to intersect these initiatives with the local work of certain museums of the migrations.

The Heritage Service of Andorra proposed to make a list of common points as well as of specificities in the form of common points: industrial archaeology and mining, history of technology, promotion of projects on a trans-national level, research of forms of action, exchanges of information and of specific points, for example, geographical and human data, the existence or not of an industry still working...

methodological references

One of the matters under discussion among the experts brought together by the Institute was related to the very name of the route: “Society and Industrial Heritage”, “Culture and Industrial Heritage”, or “Industrial Culture and Society”; it was decided to keep the name “Industrial Heritage” while referring to the TICCIH definition, for which the industrial heritage consists of the remainders of industrial culture that have historical, technological, social, architectural, or scientific value. These remainders consist of buildings and machines, workshops, “mills” and factories, mines and production or transformation sites, warehouses and stores, sites that enable the generation, transportation or utilisation of various forms of energy, just like the places used for social activities related to industry, such as places for dwelling, worship, or education. Thus in proposing to the Council of Europe the topic “European Routes of the Industrial Heritage” and according to the TICCIH definition, we include the dimension of industrial culture and that of industrial society. It is then enough to decline the title according to industrial fields: the European road of iron, ceramics, glass, textiles... while sometimes mentioning the transfrontier aspect or the importance of such and such social phenomenon.

Clujana Factory, Romania. Photo SC.

In the same way, the question of the historical period was regularly asked with regard to distinguishing between arche- or proto-industry, apart from the period starting from the industrial revolution until today. In this respect, TICCIH also proposed a precise temporal definition, by leaving the door open to the need for returning to the origins of industry, while recommending to take mainly into account the period starting from the latter half of the eighteenth century until the present, without forgetting the history of technologies.