Reimagining Industrial Sites

Changing Histories and Landscapes

Catherine Heatherington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315393162
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The discourse around derelict, former industrial and military sites has grown in recent years. This interest is not only theoretical, and landscape professionals are taking new approaches to the design and development of these sites. This book examines the varied ways in which the histories and qualities of these derelict sites are reimagined in the transformed landscape and considers how such approaches can reveal the dramatic changes that have been wrought on these places over a relatively short time scale.

It discusses these issues with reference to eleven sites from the UK, Germany, the USA, Australia and China, focusing specifically on how designers incorporate evidence of landscape change, both cultural and natural. There has been little research into how these developed landscapes are perceived by visitors and local residents. This book examines how the tangible material traces of pastness are interpreted by the visitor and the impact of the intangible elements - hidden traces, experiences and memories.

The book draws together theory in the field and implications for practice in landscape architecture and concludes with an examination of how different approaches to revealing and reimagining change can affect the future management of the site.

1
Introduction

Imagine an industrial landscape and what springs to mind? There are probably huge buildings, the ever-present whirr of machinery, trucks and lorries moving back and forth, steam, smoke, smells, grime, pollution, teams of workers, materials being extracted and transformed, things being produced. This is a landscape that revels in its materiality. Even small-scale industrial sites leave a physical mark on the landscape. Yet the nature of industry dictates that these landscapes will be temporary: part of an economic and political system that determines when they are unproductive, no longer needed, obsolete (Orange, 2015). The company moves on, is closed down, forgotten, and yet the physical presence in the landscape remains, together with the men and women who worked and still live there. These people’s past lives and memories are intertwined with the now increasingly derelict landscape; ‘the past is persistent, not just in memory or written histories, but also in the materiality of things literally present’ (LeCain, 2014: 72).

Often, when writing about the relationship between people and place, material things are overlooked, or left unexamined, with discussions of place identity or place attachment taking preference. The literature in this field is extensive; see Lewicka (2011) for a summary of the discourses around place attachment and Manzo (2005), Gustafson (2001) and Twigger-Ross and Uzzell (1996) for discussions of place meaning and identity. As LeCain points out, ‘the idea that matter itself … might influence the patterns of historical change and continuity as much as social and cultural factors has received little attention’ (LeCain, 2014: 64). In this book I start from the material – the ‘thingyness’ of these places – together with a cognisance of the states of flux that these sites are subject to. However, materiality is only one aspect; people bring their own memories and histories to bear on these landscapes. It is therefore through both the tangible and the intangible that I explore the ways that designers approach the development of brownfield sites and the responses, the experiences and the memories of the people who visit them, both when they were derelict and in their new incarnations. Viewing these landscapes from this perspective calls for an exploration of a range of multi-disciplinary texts from the realm of social science, anthropology, philosophy and cultural and human geography in order to build a conceptual framework for discussions within the field of landscape architecture. As might be expected from a book that starts from the standpoint of the materiality of brownfield sites, my concern is with the implications my findings have for the practice of landscape architecture.

Former industrial and military sites that have fallen into dereliction give rise to particular challenges. First impressions are often of dirty and dangerous places, contaminated, vandalised, forgotten and unwanted: so-called wastelands. However, this overlooks positive and distinctive aspects of these brownfield sites where juxtapositions between cultural and natural processes:

Occur in an extremely condensed manner, layering issues of cultural, social, economic and ecological construction and fragmentation in their interdependences, hinting to more fundamental questions of human existence and interrelations with the environment.

(Langhorst, 2004: 6)

This book explores the layers of pastness waiting to be uncovered in brownfield sites and examines how designers work with these remnants to create ‘collisions and overlaps’ (Langhorst, 2004: 6) between the past and the present.

In recent years there has been a reassessment of what constitutes landscape beauty and a discussion of the different ways in which we might value landscapes. This in turn has influenced the development of discourse about landscape and this volume contributes to the growing body of literature. The European Landscape Convention defines landscape as ‘an area, perceived by people, whose character is the result of action and interaction of natural and/or human factors’ (Council of Europe, 2000: 3). This definition includes not only the countryside but also the urban and urban fringes and everything in between. The Convention also affirms that landscape is important to people’s sense of identity and a part of their heritage, both natural and cultural, however, it points out that this applies to landscapes in ‘degraded areas as well as in areas of high quality, in areas recognised as being of outstanding beauty as well as everyday areas’ (Council of Europe, 2000: 2).

This concept of landscape as being about everyday places carries with it the implication that these sorts of landscapes have particular characteristics which are worth examining, hence the importance of researching redeveloped derelict sites and wastelands. In what follows I focus on landscapes that were once under industrial or military use and have then, after a period of abandonment, been developed as green spaces. Policy makers and the public in the UK commonly refer to these as brownfield sites and they are often seen as a blight on their surroundings. With this label comes a set of expectations about their future; the removal of blight is usually considered essential to regeneration and there is often pressure to sweep away all evidence of the histories of these places as part of the development strategy for the local area. Alternatively, the derelict landscape is replaced with a commoditised form of industrial heritage that is intended to aid the transformation process. Waterton observes that this form of heritage assumes that ‘areas characterised as “post-industrial” will be lacking in identity and cohesion without the implementation of explicit reclamation and regeneration policies and practices that target heritage’ (Waterton, 2011: 344). However, if we consider that derelict sites are also formed through a mix of natural processes and human interventions and, as the Convention says, are a valued part of people’s heritage, then it is important to explore the ways in which these processes and interventions can inform the future of these landscapes and the resulting perceptions of the people who visit these places.

Chapter 2 – The qualities of derelict, underused and neglected sites begins with an outline of UK Government policy to brownfield sites and introduces the phrase ‘derelict, underused and neglected’ to define these landscapes. It counters the perceptions mentioned above, that see derelict sites only in terms of blight, with an examination of the more positive recent discourses that focus on the industrial ruin. The terms material, spatial and temporal qualities are advanced to illustrate aspects of the derelict landscape that might be incorporated into the developed site: examples include artefacts, remnants, successional vegetation and landforms together with less tangible temporal processes and rhythms of change. Diverse theoretical approaches to the past history of such landscapes are considered, whilst noting that there has been little research into the experiences and perceptions of people living near developed post-industrial sites. In Chapter 3 – Eleven landscapes and their qualities I introduce eleven case study landscapes from the UK, Germany, the USA, China and Australia. These were formerly industrial or military sites that have fallen into dereliction and subsequently been developed as green spaces and all can be described as derelict, underused and neglected. For each case study there follows a summary of the site, both when it was abandoned and as it has been redeveloped, in order to give the reader background information about the landscapes and to set the scene for subsequent chapters. The material, spatial and temporal qualities of the derelict site are elucidated and a typology of qualities drawn up to illustrate the uses made of them by designers of the new landscapes. These qualities are examined in more detail in Chapter 4 – Designing to reveal change, where I analyse the eleven case studies to reveal the underlying approaches taken by landscape architects when incorporating the qualities of the derelict industrial landscape into the new site. The chapter addresses the question of how change is revealed in these new parks and public spaces and three overarching solutions are explored. First, the use of materials and processes, either through a palette of materials that makes reference to the past use, or by incorporating qualities as metaphors or symbols. Second, I examine the ways the concept of a palimpsest landscape can be used to incorporate time layers (Lynch, 1972) and time edges (Relph, 2004) – juxtapositions between old and new, past and present. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship approach (Raxworthy, 2008) to design whereby people are guided into a relationship with the layers of the site’s history through the ways they access the site, the materials they come into contact with and the views out into the wider surroundings.

The next three chapters focus on an examination of the perceptions and experiences of visitors interviewed at three case study sites in the UK: the Middlesex Filter Beds in London, the RSPB reserve at Rainham Marshes in Essex and the Hidden Gardens in Glasgow. In Chapter 5 – Perceptions of material and spatial qualities in developed sites, I explore how the material and spatial qualities evoke a sense of indeterminacy and mystery that can contribute to the ways visitors reimagine the past history of the industrial and military sites. This chapter also discusses how visitors create frames for reading the past (Treib, 2002), drawing on official and unofficial narratives to create meaning, and considering the importance of the wider landscape in this dialogue. Chapter 6 – Perceptions of temporal qualities in developed sites, turns to the temporal qualities, examining how visitors understand the temporal collages, time layers and time edges first introduced in Chapter 4. I conclude with a suggestion that perceptions of the temporal qualities contribute to a sense of the passage of time and a narrative of continuity for the visitors to these sites. Completing this section of the book, Chapter 7 – Perceptions of the qualities and their impact on memories, discusses the entanglement of memory and history. Memories are sometimes emplaced in the material, spatial and temporal qualities and are then conjured up as stories to be told and retold, but memories also arise by chance from the embodied experiences of visitors in the landscape. In this chapter I also consider the role played by absences and forgetting in reminiscences of the past and conclude with an examination of the ways in which memories contribute to perceptions of continuity.

Alongside these three chapters I include three interludes that are more discursive in nature and explore memory, materiality and temporality from the standpoint of my personal experiences during the research and interview process.

The two concluding chapters bring together the qualitative research findings from Chapters 5, 6 and 7 together with the discussion of ways of revealing landscape change outlined in Chapter 4. Chapter 8 – Implications for practice, draws attention to the importance that can be attached to the qualities of brownfield sites for local people. It examines the approaches taken by landscape architects to developing these sites in the light of visitors’ experiences and perceptions documented for the three UK case studies and draws conclusions about the effectiveness of different approaches. Chapter 9 – Managing change, looks to the future of these post-industrial sites and examines the ways the material and spatial qualities are managed and the implications of temporal qualities, such as decay and the growth of successional vegetation. The boundaries between unbridled nature, the qualities of the derelict site and the new landscape are blurred and the gradients between these three states are slippery. This leads to diverse reimaginings of the industrial landscape but also raises the question of whether ultimately all evidence of the derelict site will disappear.

The concept of reimagining runs throughout this book – seeing places anew, abandoning preconceived ideas of what is valuable in landscape, reinventing narratives about the past in the present. Perceptions of derelict sites are changing; there is a growing recognition of the potential they have for telling stories about the past and also for pointing the way to different futures. The contested histories of these brownfield sites means that many people from different backgrounds and areas of expertise have a stake in imagining their future. This book brings to light the potential these former industrial and military sites have for visitors to encounter multiple and changing temporalities leading to different imaginings, memories and stories about the past.

References

Council of Europe (2000) European Landscape Convention. Available from: www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/heritage/landscape/ [Accessed 2 August 2014].

Gustafson, P. (2001) Meanings of place: Everyday experience and theoretical conceptualizations. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21 (1), pp. 5–16.

Langhorst, J. (2004) Rising from ruins: Postindustrial sites between abandonment and engagement. Open Space: Tourist places/Theories and Strategies 2004, Edinburgh.

LeCain, T. J. (2014) Ontology of absence. In: B. Olsen & Þ. Pétursdóttir (Eds.) Ruin memories: Materialities, aesthetics and the archaeology of the recent past. London: Routledge, pp. 62–78.

Lewicka, M. (2011) Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31 (3), pp. 207–230.

Lynch, K. (1972) What time is this place? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Manzo, L. C. (2005) For better or worse: Exploring multiple dimensions of place meaning. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25 (1), pp. 67–86.

Orange, H. (2015) Introduction. In: H. Orange (Ed.) Reanimating industrial spaces: Conducting memory work in post-industrial societies. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, pp. 13–27.

Raxworthy, J. (2008) Sandstone and rust: Designing the qualities of Sydney Harbour. Journal of Landscape Architecture, 3 (2), pp. 68–83.

Relph, E. (2004) Temporality and the rhythms of sustainable landscapes. In: T. Mels (Ed.) Reanimating places: A geography of rhythms. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, pp. 111–122.

Treib, M. (2002) Must landscapes mean? (1995). In: S. Swaffield (Ed.) Theory in landscape architecture. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 89–101.

Twigger-Ross, C. L. & Uzzell, D. L. (1996) Place and identity processes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16 (3), pp. 205–220.

Waterton, E. (2011) In the spirit of self mockery? Labour, heritage and identity in the potteries. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 17 (4), pp. 344–363.

2
The qualities of derelict, underused and neglected sites

In Chapter 1 I pointed out that the European Landscape Convention recognises the value to local people of everyday landscapes and suggested that these places need not be conventionally beautiful, but cou...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Preamble
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The qualities of derelict, underused and neglected sites
• 3 Eleven landscapes and their qualities
• 4 Designing to reveal change
• Musing on the tracks: The first interlude
• Temporalities at Orford Ness: The second interlude
• My memories at Bentwaters: The third interlude
• Appendix: List of participants
• Index