Bob Marshall's Blog: Reconstructing Our Lost Industrial Past

Bob Marshall's Blog: Reconstructing Our Lost Industrial Past:

Allen Smelt Mill and Allenheads Mine Yard At its peak, Allen Smelting Mill was a noisy factory full of fire, fumes and smoke. It is rather...

Old Industrial - Mining site - Peñarroya, Andalucia, Spain

Old industrial site, that many local and Regional stakeholders, have real interest for its conservation. Many visitors take tour on the industrial archaeological heritage site.

The main town of Alto Guadiato, Peñarroya was previously a wealthy coal mining town which is now in a state of decay since its coal mines have been depleted by a French mining company. The town of 13000 people is not especially attractive, there is an abundance of abandoned buildings, relics from a time when industry was thriving and a layer of soot covers many of the buildings, including the neo-gothic brick parish church. Peñarroya is reminiscent of a northern European industrial town, placed in the unusual setting of southern Spain. The Festival de Cante de las Minas, the singing miners, is held here. Just south of the town, the reservoir of Sierra Boyera runs from Peñarroya down to Belmez. Peñarroya is situated on the main N432 road, 79km from Cordoba. The industrial goods rail line that cuts through Alto Guadiato passes through the industrial area to the south of the town.

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"Alto Guadiato Mining District (38" 18' E 1 5" 16' W) Belmez, Espiel, Pefiarroya- Pueblonuevo) (CORDOBA).

The Belmez, Espiel, Pozoblanco and Peiiarroya-Pueblonuevo mining basin yields coal- rich carbonated deposits. The mining of copper pyrite and lead-rich galena also became very important. There is documented evidence of prehistoric Copper Age mining activity in Cordoba but it was truly developed during the Roman times as shown by the advanced Arquimedes screw technology at the "Santa Barbara" lead mine in Posadas (Cordoba). The first documented industrial complex was built adjacent to Pueblonuevo del Terrible In the district of Pedroches and Guadiato in 1875 by the coal company Hullera Belmezana which at that time was working intensely and exporting its products by rail between Belmez and el Castillo de Almorchon once the rail connection between Belmez and Cordoba had been completed.

In 1881 in Paris a group of entrepreneurs created a company called Sociedad Minera y Metalurgica de Pefiarroya to support Hullera Belmezana. This company was destined to become one of the most dynamic of all of the foreign companies operating in Andalusia at the end of the lgth century; by 1914, the powerful Penarroya industrial complex had become one of Spain's most important industrial centres.

Underground and open-pit mining have left important heritage in the form of shafts and galleries as well as headframes, pump houses and ore washing tanks. Of the industrial buildings, special mention should be made of the Precious Metal Foundry of 1891, the Central Warehouse of 1910, the Nordon Warehouse, Coke Ovens and Power Plant of 1918, the railway station and a wide array of lesser installations such as pipelines, workshops, substations and smokestacks making the Peiiarroya Industrial Park one of the country's most important archaeological-industrial complexes. In 1927 the towns of Peiiarroya and Pueblonuevo were united forming the municipality as it is known today where French colonial influence is plain to see in the architecture and urban planning scheme. The same is true of the so-called Barrio Frances (French Quarter) where the homes of SMMP executives were located. The administrative headquarters of the SMMP was designed in 191 1. The Social Centre for SMMP executives, the market, hospital and French school are all examples of urban planning and architecture reminiscent of the French tradition. The mining railway system was very well developed along the Almorchon-Belmez (MZA), Cordoba-Belmez (Ferrocarriles Andaluces) and Pefiarroya- Puertollano lines."
Information -source from: http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5139/
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All photos were taken by S. Michalopoulos ©All Rights Reserved

Frisch vom Dach

To Convert Former Berlin Malt Factory Into a Rooftop Aquaponics Farm!

by Mark Boyer, 12/12/11
Community gardens are already very popular in Berlin, but a group of agro-entrepreneurs is planning to take urban farming to the next level in the German capital. A team of three Berliners is planning to convert an enormous old malt factory in the city’s Schöneberg district into a rooftop farm that promises to be one of the most ambitious urban agriculture projects in the world. The Frisch vom Dach (“Fresh from the Roof”) project will be an aquaponics farm where both fish and vegetables are produced and distributed on-site.
Under the current plan, fish will be raised in the large vats that were once used to dry barley in the factory. Greenhouses will be constructed on the 7,000-square-meter roof, and waste from the fish will be used to fertilize the vegetables. The plants will in turn filter and purify the water for the fish, creating a sustainable, closed-loop system. In addition to selling vegetables year-round, the farmers will also harvest the fish and sell them as food.

Planning for the Frisch vom Dach farm began in September, and the founders hope to have their first harvest in 2013. The estimated cost to convert the factory into a farm is €5 million, and the team is currently courting investors. While they continue to plan and raise money for the rooftop farm, the Frisch vom Dach team has produced a small prototype out of an upcycled shipping container that they've dubbed "Little Brother" to experiment with aquaponics. The double-decker container farm is currently producing both fish and vegetables, and it's on display in Berlin.

Source: http://inhabitat.com/frisch-vom-dach-to-convert-former-berlin-malt-factory-into-a-rooftop-aquaponics-farm/
Additional info: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,800376,00.html

11th International Symposium Cultural Heritage in Geosciences, Mining and Metallurgy

Mexico City, Pachuca and Real del Monte, M E X I C O
August 29th to September 2nd, 2011

The International Symposium of Mining Cultural Heritage and Earth Sciences: Libraries, Archives and Museums (Erbe Symposium) was held for the first time in Freiberg, Germany in 1993 upon the initiative of Doctor Peter Schmidt, who was working at the antique backlist of the Freiberg Mines Academy library, and Doctor Lieselotte Jontes, Director of the Library of the Technological University of Leoben, Austria. Researchers from many different archives, libraries and museums related to mining and earth sciences got together. Other disciplines have been added throughout ten symposia held in Europe and America, such as archeology and anthropology, in order to understand the mining cultural impact in places where diverse minerals and metals were exploited.

For the first time, the Erbe Symposium will take place in México City, where the first mining academy of America was established; then in Pachuca, site of the Historical Archives and Museum of Mining, their archives posses the largest mining archives in México (1616-2002); and finally in Real del Monte, where we can find the legacy of the mining work of the region in mining museums, interpretation centers and the living heritage of former miners and their traditions.

http://www.11erbesymposium.org/index.html

New York City by Alfred Stieglitz

A remarkable work...!

"Alfred Stieglitz New York" runs through Jan. 10, 2011, at the Seaport Museum New York, 12 Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, which was known until recently as the South Street Seaport Museum.

http://nyti.ms/9lidj4

"Reusing the Industrial Past", an interesting conference, Tampere, Finland, August 10-15, 2010

ICOHTEC - The International Committee for the for the History of Technology and TiCCIH - The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage and History are organising a joint conference at Tampere, Finland in 10th -15th of August 2010. The minor partner in the conference is Worklab, the international association of labour museums.

The meeting will be a joint-conference, and it´s theme is broad enough to cover various approaches.

The programme of the conference will include over 260 presentations in scientific sessions, business meetings and general assemblies of organising organisations, excursions, social events, such as receptions and the banquet, and possible pre- and post-conference trips.

Conference info: http://www.tampere.fi/industrialpast2010/

Read more about the Tampere highlights: http://gotampere.smartpage.fi/en/highlights

The Cradle of Industry: The history of Tampere is tightly linked with the history of factories and mills, of which Finlayson, Tampella and Frenckell belong to the most important ones. All were once powered by the Tammerkoski Rapids, which also gave birth to the whole city. Today, the rapids together with old red-brick factory buildings make one of Finland's national heritage landscapes.

Tampella - woven from the water: All over Finland, the early industrial towns were located by rapids. The wood processing industry, in particular, sought locations near the water, as water was an essential element in its operations. How was the power of the rapids harnessed? How could the irregular power be converted into a stable flow of energy required by the factories?

While new technologies introduced in the wood processing industry turned Finnish forests into green gold and steered Finland's economy to a new direction, another driving force of the economy began to gain ground, namely the engineering industry. Finnish factories needed grinders and water turbines, ships and locomotives.

All of the above were manufactured by Oy Tampella Ab, founded beside the upper reaches of the Tammerkoski rapids in 1861. During the Second World War, Tampella began to manufacture arms and ammunition. After the war, the factory started to make paper machines. Machinery felts, in turn, were manufactured by the town's largest wool factory, Tampereen Verkatehdas, for use in the wood processing industry. Today, most of Tampella has been converted into a residential area, but, for example, the Vapriikki Museum Centre and Tampere Comedy Theatre also have their home there.

Tako and Tampella: The introduction of wood as the raw material for paper truly revolutionised Finnish industry. Thanks to Finland's 'green gold' - the forests - industry began to grow rapidly. Since the 1860's, groundwood mills as well as pulp and paper mills were founded near rapids all around the country. The first groundwood mill in Tampere started in 1865.

Turbines and mechanical wires for the purposes of industry are still produced in Tampere.

In the same place as 130 years ago, mechanical pulpwood is being ground at Tako - today M-Real -, and shipped to paperboard mills, where it will be converted into high-quality packaging materials, which will be used in industrial applications worldwide and eventually end up in the hands of consumers.

The forests remain the foundation of the Finns' well-being. Roughly 70 per cent of the country is covered with forest, making the forest-related industries the second-largest generator of export revenue in Finland after the metal industry. Finland is the leading exporter of printing and writing paper worldwide.

Small is successful? How small mining towns tackle the problems left by mining

Peter Wirth, Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development (IOER), Dresden 

Can the World Heritage List  protect South America's greatest mine?

Mining is an ambivalent issue for the affected towns and regions. In times of exploitation of mineral deposits the regions profit from the economic revival. Employment, growth, prosperity and a high prestige are going hand in hand with the extraction and milling of natural resources. Later, when mining comes to an end, the towns and regions get to feel the consequences of decline. Unemployment is coming up, poverty  and social problems emerge, environment is polluted, image is "black", and a lot of people leave without prospects.

Problems like these concern large and small towns, central and peripheral regions, in the same way. The authors decided to address  their investigations to small towns and peripheral regions because the destiny of this type of mining areas receives mostly low consideration by policy and research. In the project READY the development results of 17 small mining towns in six Central European countries were investigated. The finding is that only five of the towns achieved higher-thanaverage success in shaping new perspectives after mining. On the one hand this makes clear the dimension of the problems to be tackled. 

On the other hand the question is: Why are some towns more successful than others?

Gräfenhainichen in Germany and Bad Bleiberg in Austria represent the "successful group" of mining communities. In Gräfenhainichen, lignite mining started at the end of the 19th century and came to an end 1990. In Bad Bleiberg lead was extracted over hundreds of  years, ending in 1993. Although both municipalities were hit hard by the negative impacts after the closure of mines, they tackled their problems in an outstanding way. In Gräfenhainichen (8,000 inhabitants in 2004), the new town perspective is based on the emergence of two large lakes as a result of opencast lignite mining. Five decommissioned excavators form an event arena on a peninsula in one of the lakes, called Ferropolis. The idea was that this "city of iron" could become the nucleus for further town development. The town set on tourism, culture, recreation, and quality of life as developmental factors – with Ferropolis as a highly visible advertisement for the project.

In Bad Bleiberg, a small municipality with only 2,800 inhabitants (2004), mining legacies are used for spa tourism purposes. In 1951, a thermal water leakage from one of the pits laid the foundation for a thermal-therapeutic spa. Together with the stimulating climate of the high Alps valley above ground and the healthy climate below, Bad Bleiberg co uld start a new career as a spa resort. In 2005, a new spa centre was erected. The attraction of the spa is an old mining gallery with dust-free atmosphere for patients with lung diseases, directly accessible from the spa by an elevator. The research project provides a set of answers to the question of successful structural change: Two factors are of special importance. Firstly, in the successful cases, leading actors like mayors could create the required capacity for  action by forming core actor groups and wider networks. They are thus in a position to assemble the resources needed for formulating and implementing innovative strategies. Secondly, in the cases of success the mining legacies – often seen as an obstacle for further development – were revaluated and involved in new attractive projects. The mining heritage was interpreted as a chance for the future and its potential maximised.

The results of research allow partly a problematic and partly an optimistic prospect. The problematic prospect is that most of the mining towns are not characterised by a climate of innovation. Often they remain in a style of thinking and acting which is still  connected to the "good old days". In such milieus, which are mostly persistent, it is hard to go in new ways. The optimistic perspective is that small mining towns are not doomed under bad development conditions. As the examples show, there are options to overcome decline and to create new perspectives.

The article is based on the author's presentation at the XIV TICCIH Congress and draws on the results of the development and research project "Rehabilitation and Development in Mining Regions" (READY),funded by the EU  NTERREG III B programme from 2004 to 2007. Partners from six European countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Romania and Slovakia). Basic research in Bad Bleiberg was done by the Karl Franzens University (KFU) Graz, Institute of Geography and Regional Science.

Photo: Gräfenhainichen. Event arena Ferropolis with decommissioned excavators as scenery. (Photo: IOER)

The Nizhny Tagil Charter for the Industrial Heritage

The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH)

17 July, 2003

TICCIH is the world organisation representing industrial heritage and is special adviser to ICOMOS on industrial heritage. The text of this charter was passed by the assembled delegates at the triennial National Assembly of TICCIH held in Moscow on 17 July, 2003.
Preamble

The earliest periods of human history are defined by the archaeological evidence for fundamental changes in the ways in which people made objects, and the importance of conserving and studying the evidence of these changes is universally accepted.

From the Middle Ages, innovations in Europe in the use of energy and in trade and commerce led to a change towards the end of the 18th century just as profound as that between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, with developments in the social, technical and economic circumstances of manufacturing sufficiently rapid and profound to be called a revolution. The Industrial Revolution was the beginning of a historical phenomenon that has affected an ever-greater part of the human population, as well as all the other forms of life on our planet, and that continues to the present day.

The material evidence of these profound changes is of universal human value, and the importance of the study and conservation of this evidence must be recognised.

The delegates assembled for the 2003 TICCIH Congress in Russia wish therefore to assert that the buildings and structures built for industrial activities, the processes and tools used within them and the towns and landscapes in which they are located, along with all their other tangible and intangible manifestations, are of fundamental importance. They should be studied, their history should be taught, their meaning and significance should be probed and made clear for everyone, and the most significant and characteristic examples should be identified, protected and maintained, in accordance with the spirit of the Venice Charter (1), for the use and benefit of today and of the future.

(1)  The ICOMOS 'Venice Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites', 1964.

a project Thesis: “Integration and Reuse of Inactive Industrial buildings and old Warehouses, in Central Urban Areas. The case of the former Patras’ General Warehouses”

The issue of integration and reuse of inactive industrial buildings and Old Warehouses, as well as their exploitation, examined the last decades worldwide, based on architectural, planning, economic and social components.
 

The case of a building with the name «GENERAL WAREHOUSE PATRAS», which covers a whole block in the city center of Patras, GREECE, discussed the issue in its theoretical basis, given examples of successful applications and enhance all components of the conservation of such buildings, as an important factor in improving the urban "ways" and the quality of the urban environment.
 

In the initial phase of work, given a recording of the thematic subject and analyzes the objectives, in order to clearly define the basis platform for the whole thesis.
The breakdown of the methodological approach follows, given the proceeding way for the working methods and stages of the research, as well as the means and the sources used.
 

The approach of the thesis subject, which takes place on three levels, the theoretical background, the selected examples and the case study, developed in three following chapters.
In the theoretical background are described and analyzed key concepts needed to understand and implement the integration and reuse of inactive industrial buildings and Old Warehouses, the techniques for development, the various types of buildings and, the ideas and opportunities for such endeavors. In order to complete the theoretical coverage of the subject, analyzing the status of such buildings compared to the wider area covered and the proposed uses of these, involving the feasibility approach.
 

Selected examples, identified by quantitative and qualitative criteria, are presented for evaluating the nowadays status and future scenarios, giving to the researchers a clear picture for the adaptation of such sites to new uses.
 

The design of the case study, is coming to complete the approach, with reference both to the wider area of the selected building, and through analysis, evaluation and design for the building of the study. At the end of the chapter, an estimation of the proposal result is given, following by some comments on its’ contribution to the future of the city.
 

Finalizing, some thoughts, ideas and suggestions are given on how the rehabilitation of such buildings through their new uses, in economic and social life of the cities, can help the historic city centers which are evolving and changing continuously.

S. Michalopoulos

November 2009, Patras, Greece