NUMBER 80
2nd Quarter, 2018
CONTENTS
REPORT
• U.S. Waterworks, Museums and Sites, Dennis J. De Witt
WORLDWIDE
• Uncovering Greenland’s Industrial Heritage, Hans
Harmsen and Inge Seiding
• The Familistère and the Utopia Program, Frédéric Panni
• Machines to Serve the People - Godin and Mechanics,
Claudine Cartier and Frédéric Panni
• The Black Bridge of Ahwaz, Hasan Bazazzadeh and
Mohsen Ghomeshi
• Gasholders, Industrial Relic to Modern Architecture,
Barbara Berger
• Water Towers Research Project, Šárka Jiroušková
• Big Stuff 2019, Alison Wain
TICCIH NEWS
• Help Shape the Future of TICCIH, Stephen Hughes
• TICCIH Board Meetings 2017, Stephen Hughes
• TICCIH and the 19th ICOMOS Triennial General
Assembly, Stephen Hughes
INDUSTRIAL MUSEUMS
• Sònia Hernández, Director of the Museu Agbar de les
Aigües
CONFERENCE NEWS
• TICCIH Conference on the International Heritage of
the Water Industry, Meisha Hunter
• Nuclear Power Stations. Heritage Values and
Preservation Perspectives, Norbert Tempel
• Railway Heritage-Specifics, Challenges and Limits of
Preservation and the New Uses
BOOK REVIEWS
• Industrial Heritage and UNESCO by Massimo Preite
Edoardo Currà
EVENTS CALENDAR
Professor Martin V Melosi (second left) expresses final thoughts at the TICCIH thematic water
conference in Barcelona; from right: Stephen Hughes, TICCIH Secretary, Dr Šárka Jiroušková,
Dr Jorge Tartarini Dr Manel Martin, Professor Susan Ross, Rolf Höhmann, and (far left) James
Douet. See page 24 for the conference report.
OPINION
WATER AT THE END
OF THE RAINBOW
Steve Hall, Kalgoorlie, Australia
The last great gold rush in Australian history followed the discovery of
gold at what became Coolgardie (1892) and Kalgoorlie (1893). On June
15 and 16, 2018, a mining heritage conference will be held in KalgoorlieBoulder to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the discovery of gold there
in 1893.
Thousands travelled to these remote, almost waterless, locations in
search of wealth. The easily won alluvial gold was quickly exhausted. Soon
many were employed in cutting timber as fuel and roof supports for the
underground mines that developed along the ‘Golden Mile’.
Public health issues, including typhoid outbreaks, resulting from the high
cost and availability of drinking water was a threat to the revenue and
growth of the colony of Western Australia. The Chief Engineer, Charles
Yelverton O’Connor, devised a plan to pump water more than 500 kilometres from a new dam outside of Perth, the State capital, to Kalgoorlie.
Work commenced in 1898. The estimated cost was equal to the annual
budget of the colony and the pressures on O’Connor to deliver the project on budget and on time contributed to his suicide in 1902. However,
the project was successfully completed the following year and provided
agricultural communities along the pipeline with secure supplies of drinking water, as well as to the gold-mining communities.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
OPINION
The pipeline construction employed a novel technology, devised
by an agricultural engineer, Mephan Ferguson. The locking bar system that removed the need for riveting is the symbol of the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail. For many years this was the longest
water supply pipeline in the world.
The south-west of Western Australia (the ‘Wheatbelt’) is now a
significant supplier of wheat and barley to the world’s markets
from around 4,000 farms, worth AUS$ 3-4 billion dollars to the
State economy. Gold exports are still worth over AUS$8 billion
a year and the pipeline still keeps flowing. In 2009, the American
Society of Civil Engineers named the pipeline an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. The pipeline continues to operate today, and it appears on the National Heritage List.
The Goldfields ‘Golden’ Pipeline (Photograph: Dr Nina Hall)
The first pumping station at Mundaring Weir, the dam constructed
for the project, is now part of the National Trust WA and a number of the original eight pump stations are maintained as museums, while other are just ruins in the bush.
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2
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
2
REPORT
U.S.A.
WATERWORKS, MUSEUMS
AND SITES
Dennis J. De Witt, Metropolitan Waterworks Museum,
Boston, U.S.
With very few exceptions, U.S. waterworks of any size initially
involved steam pumping. Long distance diversion of the cleanest
water from higher elevations by aqueducts, pressure pipes, and
deep tunnels was and remains extremely rare. 19th government
interventions, often involving chicanery, may have facilitated land
and water rights acquisition for industrial purposes and railroads.
But rarely was there the same political will to allow watershed/
reservoir land acquisition and/or the imposition of regulations on
large catchment areas, nor for aqueducts, such as those developed
by New York and Boston.
Even where the topography permitted, as in Philadelphia, expeditious, less expensive pumping of polluted water from nearby rivers remained politically acceptable. One only-partial exception
to this pattern was Washington D.C. whose 12 mile Washington
Aqueduct of 1855-65 was modelled on those of New York and
Boston, but it transported ‘murky’ Potomac River water. In a city
of icons and monuments, it has little public recognition, no related
museum, and some of its associated structures are at risk. It is
best known for having been built under the supervision of U.S.
Amy engineer Montgomery C. Meigs.
In the vast, flat, mid-west, for cities such as Buffalo, Cleveland, Louisville, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, there was no alternative to
pumping. And, by the mid-19th century, coal was relatively cheaply
mined and transported by railroad or river. Later in the century,
and coincidental with the use of elevators in even modest-height
buildings, iron water towers became a ubiquitous feature of the
U.S. townscape skyline. Only gradually, over a century and a half,
did pollution source control, combined with improving filtering
and treatment standards, compensate for the originally poor quality of some of these sources.
There are many surviving historic U.S pumping station and other
waterworks buildings. Because of the understandable scrapping of
unused, space-consuming equipment and the need for improved
technologies, only a few retain their steam pumping engines and/
or remain museologically desirable. Boston’s engines survive because they were replaced by deep pressure-tunnels from a higher
elevation reservoir, not by newer pumps.
As most systems draw from rivers, lakes, or wells, there are very
few major historic U.S. aqueducts. In the following, necessarily
The Neoclassical 1860 pumping station and standpipe of the Louisville, Kentucky,
WaterWorks Museum. (Photo: Creative Commons)
limited notes, sites are grouped by shared characteristics. Access
to active waterworks in the U.S. is typically very restricted, so
they cannot function as museums. Some important, still-active,
sites are inaccessible for security reasons.
Two small southern pumping station museums with compound
engines operable under steam. No other identified steam pumping engines in original U.S. locations can presently be powered
under steam or rotated by other means; steam operation is
probably infrequent.
McNeill Street Pumping Station Museum, Shreveport, LA. This
architecturally modest museum has two Worthington horizontal
compound engines. It was the last steam powered station in the
U.S.
Crystal Springs Pump Station Museum, South Roanoke, VA: This
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
3
REPORT
Metropolitan
Waterworks Museum, Boston,
Massachusetts.(Photo: D
J. De Witt)
very small museum has a 1905 Snow compound horizontal engine.
Two waterworks museums in more substantial museums in architecturally significant buildings with inactive triple-expansion steam
pumping engines:
WaterWorks Museum, Louisville, KY: This is the only U.S. waterworks museum with a steam pumping engine that is also related
to an operating waterworks. That is probably allowable because
Louisville’s water is now drawn below ground and treated elsewhere. Open Wednesday-Sunday. Its iconic feature is a (reconstructed) Neo-classical standpipe, part of a circa 1860 Greek
Revival pumping station, whose original outer wings and paired
smokestacks are gone. Its empty original engine room is now
used for weddings and private events, a common practice in the
U.S., where many museums are not government supported. The
museum’s, largely graphic, displays are in a wing of this building.
One of two semi-paired 1893 and 1919 riverside pumping buildings houses a 1919, 115-million liters/day, Allis Chalmers vertical
triple-expansion engine. Those building are connected by a bridge
to an intake building in the river. There is also a coal store, boiler
house, and monumental, flared-base smokestack.
Metropolitan Waterworks Museum, Boston, MA:The Romanesque
Chestnut Hill High Service Pumping Station of 1888 and 1899
has three steam pumping engines. An 1894, 95-million liters/day,
4
Leavitt-Riedler vertical triple-expansion engine is the innovative
Leavitt’s only surviving engine. Among features unique to his engines or this one are: high speed 50 RPM operation; mechanically
actuated (not passive) pump valves; a Krupp forged crank shaft;
cam-operated slide steam valves and hydraulically controlled, highpressure cylinder inlet valve timing. An 1899, 115-million liters/
day,Allis vertical triple-expansion engine is the earliest of this standard Allis-Chalmers design. And there is a 1921, 60-million liters/
day Worthington-Snow horizontal compound engine. When built,
the Allis and Leavitt-Riedler were tested and rated by MIT as the
most efficient to date.
Adjacent to the Museum are the 1848 Cochituate Aqueduct, the
1870 Chestnut Hill Reservoir, the terminus of the 1870 Sudbury
Aqueduct, and the 1899 Neoclassical Chestnut Hill Low Service
Pumping Station (internally repurposed). Nearby are the folly-like
gatehouse of the Fisher Hill Reservoir (now a park) and the 1848
Cochituate Aqueduct’s effluent gatehouse with the oldest extant
U.S. iron roof and roof structure and oldest extant U.S. iron stairs
intended for public use.
The preservation of the Chestnut Hill Pumping Stations’ site
and creation of the Museum, which operates without admission
charge, was made possible by an innovative financial mechanism
devised by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Museum stands at a nexus of Boston’s system of mid-19th
U.S.A. WATER continued, page 17
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
4
WORLDWIDE
GREENLAND
UNCOVERING GREENLAND’S
INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE: A
PROLOGUE
Hans Harmsen and Inge Seiding, Greenland National
Museum and Archives
The Greenland National Museum and Archives (Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu or NKA) has recently joined TICCIH
to galvanize both domestic and international public interest in the
rapid industrialization and centralization of Greenland. This is one
of the surest ways to promote future conservation and protection
of industrial heritage areas as a cultural resource.
Archaeological remains older than 1900 are protected under
Greenland’s Heritage Protection Act. However, in recent years the
NKA has shifted attention to a new category of historic and modern archaeological remains that reflect Greenland’s post-world
war two era of modernization.
Greenland has a small population of 55,877 people, but its natural
wealth, both on the land and sea, brought rapid industrialization
in the latter half of the 20th century. These forces had a profound
effect on the lives and livelihoods of Inuit Greenlanders who often
times were required to adapt rapidly to changes imposed upon
their traditional lifestyles and customs. The enduring legacy of this
period has inextricably modified and altered Greenland’s natural
landscape and people. Monuments of this era are seen in the many
derelict fish-processing factories, mining operations and US military installations scattered along the country’s ice-free coasts.
Greenland’s era of industrialization begins during the second
world war and continues through to the present day. However,
this does not exclude places and phases where earlier pre-industrial and proto-industrial roots are also observed. Danish colonial
trade was fuelled by the European demand for sea mammal blubber (seals and whales) for much of the 18th and 19th centuries,
and many remnants of this period are still found in the Disco Bay
and other parts of the West coast of Greenland. Colonial trade in
sea mammal products continued in Greenland until the European
market for train oil dwindled in the late 19th century.
This industry was replaced by large-harvest fishing and the processing of fish products. To a lesser extent, the early 20th century
also saw the re-introduction of farming and sheep herding in the
southern parts of West Greenland as well as several continuous
mining ventures (cryolite, iron, graphite, copper, marble, coal, lead
and zinc). These changes are still remembered by a living genera-
Færingehavn was the largest of a series of fishing harbors, but closed down in the late
1980s and is now a ghost town.
tion of Greenlanders and had a significant impact on their descendants.
Study of this gradual shift toward industrialization draws on the
work and history of technology and the economic transitions that
set the stage for many Inuit Greenlanders to change completely
from subsistence hunting to a government-subsidized cash economy by the mid-20th century. Documenting and creating awareness
around the development of an industrial era in Greenland requires
seeing this not-so-distant past through a different lens that acknowledges the rapidly changing conditions of life and culture in
Greenland over the past few decades.
A recent example of the attention now given to the period of
industrialization at the national level is seen in the discussions
taking place between Greenland and the Faroe Islands regarding
the cleanup of the ghost town of Færingehavn in West Greenland.
Only a two-hour boat ride south of Nuuk, the capital city, Færingehavn marked the introduction of non-Greenlandic/Danish fishing
and fish-landing. The property was acquired by the Faroese, Norwegian and Danish company Nordafar in the 1950s and quickly
became renowned as one of the most modern fishing harbors
and fish processing plants operating in Greenland. When it closed
it was solely Faroese-owned but still employed and traded with
many Greenlanders.The case of Nordafar is highly significant as an
example of the development of the fishing industry and memories
and material remains that connect to the impact it had on the local
communities around the town of Nuuk.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
5
WORLDWIDE
Train oil press outside
the Greenland National
Museum in Nuuk. Michael
Nielsen, 2018.
Another important set of case studies involves the legacy of military installations left behind by the US Army and Air Force. In
1941, the United States assumed responsibility for the defense of
Greenland and this required building several airfields and weather
stations along Greenland’s west, southern and eastern coasts. A
total of 14 installations were constructed during the war years.
Some of these bases and stations were decommissioned after the
war, while others remained operational through the Cold War era.
Bluie West Six or Thule Air Base is the only US base still operational and currently one of the US military’s northernmost installations in the Arctic. Airfields at Narsarsuaq (Bluie West One) and
Kangerlussuaq (Sonderstrom Air Base or Bluie West Eight) were
gradually scaled back and closed and converted into commercial
airports that are now important economic and transit hubs.These
bases hold innumerable stories. Interactions with US personnel
during the war years would have been the first contact for many
Greenlanders with the outside world beyond the Danish colonial
administration. These places impacted in both positive and negative ways and their historic role in the shaping of Greenland’s society remains a rich area for future study.
Consequently, the lingering presence and future cleanup of US installations that were left derelict has become a significant political
debate between Greenland and Denmark. In 2017, an agreement
was made between the two governments to initiate the removal
of industrial machinery and waste at Ikkateq (Bluie East Two) and
Marraq (Bluie West Four) at the cost of 180 million Danish kroner.
Enormous challenges remain on how these sites will be effectively
‘cleaned up’, and at the moment it seems promising that the NKA
will be invited to document and record any remains at these sites
before the cleanup begins.
6
The strengthening of research around the era of industrialization
in Greenland is timely as the country has recently entered a new
intensive phase of infrastructure expansion and commercial development. This is juxtaposed against the recent addition of a large
area in South Greenland to the UNESCO World Heritage List
and a second pending nomination listing further north between
the town of Sisimiut and the international airport Kangerlussuaq.
At a time when the remnants of industrial and military sites are
under considerable discussion for removal, it falls upon the NKA
to contribute to the debate and emphasize their importance as
cultural landmarks. The knowledge and stories of these places has
frequently remained inaccessible to the Greenlandic population
and should be explored and communicated. Besides activating
people’s memory, focus will also examine the material relics from
the period that provide greater contexts to the technological advances and larger economic trends that shaped people’s lives in
profound and important ways.
These places contain memories, oral histories and personal experiences that are part of Greenland’s living history and deeply
emotional subjects for many people that lived through these transitions first-hand.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
6
WORLDWIDE
Aerial view of the Familistere of Guise to 1990. (Photo: anonymous, circa 1990)
FRANCE
THE FAMILISTÈRE AND THE
UTOPIA PROGRAM
Frédéric Panni, Head Curator of Heritage, Director of
the Familistère
The Familistère at Guise was a unique social experiment, a concrete utopia founded in 1859 near the stove factory of the Fourierist manufacturer Jean-Baptiste André Godin. It is now an inhabited heritage and site museum with residents, working schools, an
active Italianate theatre and gardens open to the public. The museum is the corner-stone of the Utopia project for the cultural, architectural, economic and social redevelopment of the Familistère.
In 1968, a public company was created to take over the Cooperative Association of Capital and Labor which Godin founded in
1880, and the new shareholders decided to discontinue the social
heritage of the Familistère, which had now become a financial burden. The Godin SA Company sold the former collective services
to the Guise municipality and parceled out the apartments of the
Social Palace, the large housing block, to private owners or tenants. Over the next two decades, the increasing importance of
landlords, combined with the lack of social housing in the Guise
region, caused a marked change in the population of the Palace,
and the social and material aspects of the situation deteriorated.
Only the Cambrai Pavilion, which better reflected the standard of
contemporary collective housing, functioned properly.
Around 1990, associations supported by the City of Guise began
focusing on the recognition of the site’s heritage. The Association
for the Godin Foundation was dedicated to spreading Godin’s
work and ideas, and began to organize visits to the Familistère.
The Theater, Music and Dance Association began activities for the
preservation and life of the theater. The various buildings of the
Familistère, with the exception of the factory and Landrecies and
Cambrai pavilions, were classified as historic monuments in 1991
due ‘to the exceptional interest afforded by this unique example
of concrete application of the principles of 19th century phalansterian socialism, as well as the architectural and historical value of
the various elements that make it up’.
In 1996 the City of Guise supported by the Ministry of Culture
made plans to develop a presentation space for the Familistère in
the Economat. A report written by Jean-Loup Pivin ambitiously
went beyond the initial purpose of the municipal application with
a global renewal program called Utopia. The City of Guise could
not commit to this business by itself so in 1998 the Department
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
7
WORLDWIDE
The Familistère: 1. Left Wing of the ‘Social Palace’ 2. Central Pavilion 3. Right Wing / Square / 5. Theatre 6. Schools 7. Economats (cooperative stores) 8. Laundry – swimming
pool 9. Cambrai Pavilion 10. Landrecies Pavilion 11. Factory 12. Familistère War Memorial 13. Bandstand 14. Peninsula Garden 15. Pleasure Garden a. Oise River b. Canal.
of Aisne adopted the Utopia program and supported its financing. The investment budget for the Utopia program from 2000 to
2020 is just under €57 million, financed by Department of Aisne:
50%, State: 25%, Picardy region then Hauts-de-France: 20%, and
European Union: 5%. In 2000, the Department and the City of
Guise formed the Syndicat mixte du Familistère Godin to oversee
the program, administer the Familistère and bring it to life on all
cultural, tourist-related and economic fronts.
The condition for public intervention at the Familistère was
the reunification of land ownership by the Syndicat mixte du
Familistère Godin. In 2000, there were 202 housing units in the
Social Palace and 130 different owners, occupiers or landlords,
many of modest means. The current inhabitants of the palace are
tenants or former resident owners who enjoy a right to continue
living in their apartment for as long as they wish. Since 2010, the
entire Familistère is public property.
As its name suggests, the Utopia program settled on the idea that
‘Utopia, a reflection about society, and the different systems of
projection of society into the future, is of interest to all audiences
of our time’. The program committed to creating a large-scale
cultural and tourist establishment on this theme in a small town
located in an isolated rural area. It is a real city project, embracing
the whole of the historical site of the Familistère and its various
components: apartment buildings, service buildings, gardens and
public spaces.The Utopia program foresees the creation of a large
site museum, the rehabilitation of the architecture of the Social
Palace, the urban and landscape requalification of the Familistère
and the amelioration of the living quarters. In 2015, the Familistère
at Guise was awarded the Silletto Prize by the European Museum
Forum. The right wing of the Social Palace is reserved for housing,
while the left wing is intended to accommodate a ‘multi-standard’
hotel. The Utopia Program intention is for the Familistère to become a major tourist attraction in the region.
Conceived in its entirety by Godin, the Familistère was built and
organized progressively during the 19th century. The Utopia program for its renewal has been proceeding in stages, following a
global plan of development. Two important stages were defined
from the start: the restoration and the development of the annex
buildings and gardens; and the rehabilitation of the buildings of
the palace. This is how the Utopia program began: starting with
the renovation of the Economats, pleasure and peninsula gardens,
laundry-pool, Godin’s apartment and the theater, before continuing on with the central pavilion and the two other wings of the
palace.
8
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
8
WORLDWIDE
MACHINES TO SERVE THE
PEOPLE - GODIN AND
MECHANICS
Claudine Cartier, Honorary Curator of Heritage and
Frédéric Panni, Head Curator of Heritage, Director of
the Familistère in Guise
The power of machines harnessed by productive associations will create
well-being and comfort for the working classes.
– Letter from Jean-Baptiste André Godin to Edward
Vansittart Neale, 2nd June 1886.
The new temporary exhibition at the Familistère in Guise commemorating the bicentenary of the birth of its founder, Jean-Baptiste André Godin (1817-1888), is about the mechanical imagination of this reforming industrialist.
The Familistère utopia was founded on industry. Its economy depended on the foundries, stove and cooker factories at Guise and
Brussels and its organisation was based on Saint-Simonian industrialist thought. The founder, Jean-Baptiste André Godin (18171888), was convinced that technological progress would bring
about radical social changes, just as it had brought about an industrial revolution in Great Britain.
Although he drew a distinction between productive machinery
and destructive machinery (weapons of war), Godin, in keeping
with many other contemporary socialists, believed in the neutrality of technology. In a capitalist system machines enslave the
working classes; in a system which associates capital, labour and
View of the exhibition. Photo: Familistère de Guise, 2017.
talent machines bring them benefits. By itself, technical innovation does not bring about social justice, as can be easily observed
in a capitalist industrial society. However, as he wrote in Solutions sociales in 1871, ‘Major Industry nevertheless represents
significant progress achieved by the Human Mind in this century;
it is a preliminary improvement in the methods and processes
of general production, an improvement essential to the imminent
Emancipation of Workers by the Association’. Godin believed in a
dialectic between technical progress and social utopia. Mechanisation would always end up benefitting the working classes; because
labour would eventually control capital.
For Godin, as for the Fourierists of his generation, modern machines were the means of fulfilling the prophecies of Charles Fourier: their productive capacity would enable the Association to
create an affluent society enjoyed by all its members. Engineers’
mechanical achievements competed with Fourierist mechanics of
passions. But the phalanstery needed more than ideas. Before the
Les forges d’Abainville, painting by François Bonhommé, 1839. Private collection. Photo: Guillaume Benoît with courtesy Galerie Talabardon et Gautier, Paris.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
9
WORLDWIDE
Stereoscopic views of
the Universal Exhibition
in London in 1862, London Photographic and
Stereoscopic
Society,
1862. Musée français de
la Photographie à Bièvres.
Photo: musée français de
la Photographie / Conseil départemental de
l’Essonne, Benoit Chain.
Familistère was founded in 1859, this former worker appeared to
his Fourierist technologist friends as the phalanstery mechanic.
(The phalanstery was a type of building designed for a self-contained utopian community, ideally consisting people working together for mutual benefit, and developed in the early 19th century
by Charles Fourier). He could lay claim to industrial success which
owed much to his talent for innovation. In 1849 Godin wrote an
essay on the central heating system in a collective palace, and in
1855 he evaluated the mechanical devices that would be needed
by the Reunion colony in Texas (of which he was one of the managers). From 1859 the creation of the Familistère enabled him to
develop a large number of original technical systems. If Charles
Fourier was seen as the scientific heir to Isaac Newton, Godin
could be compared to Robert Fulton, the early 19th century
steam boat engineer. Social reform is indeed a form of mechanics.
Godin doubtless subscribed to this declaration by Victor Considerant, a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, in his Manifeste de
l’École sociétaire (1841): ‘We are social engineers’.
In his books, correspondence and diary (Le Devoir), the founder of
the Familistère can be seen to take an interest in technological developments - industrial, domestic, even spiritual. The exhibition and
its accompanying book are dedicated to Godin’s mechanical world.
The exhibition is based on five different aspects of Godin’s social approach to machines: The steam engine, symbol of progress
shows how early socialists considered the steam engine to be a
democratic machine. The railway, a major component of social
change describes the development of French railways and their
importance in terms of social reform for Saint-Simonians and Godin. Machines admired by Godin displays a selection of machines
and machine models which Godin saw or could have seen, particularly at the Universal Exhibitions in Paris and London in 1855,
1862, 1867 and 1878. Machines devised by Godin deals with the
10
domestic and industrial machines invented by Godin, including
one to record spirits of the dead. Finally Domestic workplace machines reviews the 20th century mechanisation of domestic tasks
- the dream of Fourierists ... fulfilled by capitalism.
The exhibition comprises some 150 objects, rarely seen or displayed for the first time, on loan from private collectors or from
institutions such as MuCem in Marseille, the Musée des Arts et
Métiers, Musée Carnavalet, Musée d’Orsay or the central library
of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, the
Académie François Bourdon in Le Creusot, the Musée Français
de la Photographie in Bièvres, the Musée Gallé-Juillet in Creil, the
Conservatoire de l’Agriculture in Chartres, the Institut National
de la Propriété Industrielle in Courbevoie and the Orange historical collection (at Soisy-sous-Montmorency). Items on public
display for the first time include a recently discovered painting by
François Bonhommé (Les forges d’Abainville, 1839, private collection); one of the oldest steam-driven merry-go-rounds in France
(Le petit train de Remilly, ca. 1875, MuCEM); a London Photographic and Stereoscopic Society box with views of the Universal
Exhibition in London in 1862; and an extraordinary railway map,
produced around 1865 by the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du
Nord (Musée Français de la Photographie).
The exhibition is curated by the authors at the Familistère at
Guise www.familistere.com and will be open until 24th June,
2018. The book based on the exhibition (in French): 160 pages,
hardback, 200 colour illustrations. Retail price: 24.80 € (incl. VAT)
Order on-line on Familistère website.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
10
WORLDWIDE
IRAN
THE BLACK BRIDGE OF AHWAZ
Hasan Bazazzadeh, Jundi-Shapur University of
Technology and Mohsen Ghomeshi, University
of Tehran
The great railway of Iran was established in the early years of the
20th century connecting Bandar-e-Shapur (Bandare-e-Emam) to
Bandar-e-Pahlavi (Bandr-Torkman) in order to speed the trading
through Iran and between its two naval borders. This railway possessed stations, track, tunnels and bridges, but the longest bridge
for the railway was built over the river Karun in the heart of
Ahwaz. As there was another bridge named the white bridge, and
for the color of the new bridge, people called it the Black Bridge.
The Black Bridge of Ahwaz was built in 1929 and was also named
the Victory Bridge by the Allies in world war two as it played an
undeniable role in transporting forces and supplies from the south
to the north of the country. This bridge is registered on national
list of cultural heritages of Iran since February, 2000.
An old picture of the Black Bridge.
Ahwaz is the capital of Khuzestan province and is located in the
very center of the territory beside the Karun, longest river of Iran.
Khuzestan is believed to be the most strategic and economic part
of Iran, known as the center of oil exploitation of the country
and is famous for its long rivers, vast agriculture, active ports and
blossoming industry.
Several industries have been established in Ahwaz and numbers of
them are still in progress. Despite the deep culture that existed
in the area it was the Industrial Revolution and modernization of
Iran that developed Ahwaz towards being the most important city
of the south. There are oil wells, silos, banks, labor settlements,
railways and bridges that prove the importance of the city after
industrialization. Among the various industries, railways and roads
play the most significant role in the evolution of the city for Ahwaz
is located in a vast plain crossed by the long Karun river (which is
navigable for sailing vessels) and is close to the main ports of Iran
by the Persian Gulf, Bandar-e-Emam, Khorramshahr and Abadan).
Thus Ahwaz acted as a central node of a network which connected different veins of economy in modernizing Iran.
The main structure of the bridge is steel and joints are bolts and
rivets. It stands on a concrete foundation believed to lie on the remains of a Sassanid hydraulic structure. The length of the bridge is
more than 1050m, standing on 52 piles and it is 6m wide, its deck
contains two rail tracks and two sidewalks, as the bridge was first
used for trains, pedestrians and for cars, by the time it was used
particularly for trains and the sidewalks are useless these days.
There are also two controller stations at both ends. The bridge
The Black Bridge in these days.
was designed and built by the Danish engineering firm Kampax,
who were in charge of Iranian railway development.
The Black Bridge was the first connecting the two sides of the
city and this connection lead the expansion of the city and developing of Kianpars district. The Black Bridge of Ahwaz used to be
very vibrant and popular during its first decades of use. Nowadays
Ahwaz enjoys eight bridges and the Black Bridge is not as functional as it was before, and used only for limited transportation of
trains. Two riverside roads and two parks are developed on each
sides of the bridge and helped the bridge gain its new role in the
city. Concerning the flatten skyline of the city by the river and
bridge’s outstanding form, nowadays the Black Bridge is one of the
monuments which shapes the identity of Ahwaz and its history,
the bridge is also used as one the main tourist attractions of Ahwaz even though the deck of bridge is closed for visitors. Thanks
to municipality managers of Ahwaz the bridge is lighted at nights,
let’s hope it will be opened for visitors soon.
Contact: Hasan Bazazzadeh and Mohsen Ghomeshi
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
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Rehabilitation of a payab,
the access gallery to
qanāt/kārīz in the urban
structure of Yazd (Canavas, 2015).
IRAN & P.R. OF CHINA
TRADITIONAL WATER
TECHNOLOGIES AS
HERITAGE TOURISM
Professor Constantin Canavas, Hamburg University of
Applied Sciences
A traditional technique of extracting and transporting water in
arid regions from North Africa and Middle East up to East Asia
is generally known as qanāt or kārīz or other local names. Thus,
qanāt (pl. qanawāt) is used in Syria, Ewypt, and Western Iran, as
well as in medieval historical sources from Norman Sicily and alAndalus (the Muslim Iberian peninsula). Further terms still in use
among Arabic speaking populations are foggara in Algeria and Tunisia, khaṭṭāra in Morocco, and falaj (pl. aflaj) in Oman. The term
kārīz/kāhrez is used in Eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and in Western
China (here in the form of the Uyghur term karez or korag), whereas the Mandarin term kănérjĭng is also used in Chinese sources referring to the underground water network systems in the West.
Such pluralism of trans-regional and local terminology can be regarded as an indication of a generic traditional technique imbedded
12
in local culture, although some scholars use the distribution of terminology as evidence for their claims considering models describing
the temporal and regional transmission of the specific technique.
This technique is characterised by sophisticated (mainly empirical)
know-how, high labour demand on construction and maintenance,
but low-tech demand on (traditional) equipment. Such water networks, whether for irrigation or drinking, consist of underground
canals leading water from the source (generally near a mountain)
to the places of consumption, and are visually traceable through
the rings of accumulated soil dug out from the aligned shafts between the mother-shaft and the outlet of the underground canal.
The intensification of water demand and the pressure of technological modernisation have created a new frame for ‘rediscovering’ and re-assessing the ‘old-fashioned’ but long-established
water management technique. In certain cases this re-assessment
has induced novel social and political negotiations regarding preserving or abandoning of the qanāt/kārīz networks. The current
examples of Iran and the PR of China are remarkable because,
though on different historical backgrounds, similar decisions were
taken regarding both the continuation of using at least a part of
the network, as well as its listing as cultural heritage in combination with its partial access in form of heritage tourism. However,
introducing the issue into heritage discourse and tourism policy
has followed different ways in each of these countries.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
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Qanāt/kārīz (kāhrez) networks were used in the past for a large
part of irrigation in agriculture as well as for urban water supply
(e.g. Teheran) in the Iranian highlands. However, motor-driven
wells, surface water reservoirs and dams cause lower groundwater horizons; under this influence, qanāt/kārīz networks increasingly get put out of use. The re-assessment of the qanāt/
kārīz-based traditional water technology in Iran gained impetus
and institutional representation at the end of the 1990s. The International Centre of Qanāts and Historic Hydraulic Structures in
Yazd is a symbol of and a leading institution in this development.
The new impetus led to the foundation of the Yazd Water Museum in 2000.
Moreover, the integration of the old qanāt/kārīz-network in the
rehabilitation project of the old town of Yazd became a major political and administration issue. The underground water network
is not any more in function; its public accessibility, however, became a major part of the novel heritage tourism concept of the
town. In the Yazd Water Museum as well as in further (partially
private) exhibitions in Yazd, the traditional urban water management on the basis of the qanāt/kārīz technology is demonstrated
at several stages. The information provided to the visitor reflects
the dominant Iranian qanāt/kārīz discourse, which also applies on
the ongoing preservation projects in Yazd and elsewhere. This discourse considers the qanāt/kārīz networks as sustainable ancient
systems for underground water exploitation and as major representative examples (if not the most important ones) of traditional
Iranian technology.
The case of Turfan, an oasis at the edge of the Gobi desert in the
Xinjiang Province, West China, is a remarkable example of politically and socially motivated changes in the adaptability of the
kārez technique. A real revival of the kārez technique in Xinjiang
set on with a movement of kārez (re)construction in the 1950s1960s. The motivation and the organizational basis (e.g. arrangements with the potential users for participating at the reactivation and maintenance of the extant kārez system at that time)
were provided by the new local communist authorities. 60 years
later the kārez water is no longer considered the main source for
irrigation and water supply in the Turfan region and the province.
The interest has shifted from the role of survival technology in the
1950s to a factor of political influence and prestige in the relations
between the (autonomous) provincial and the central government.
On the provincial level, the Xinjiang authorities promoted and
supported the presentation of the traditional technique in a kārez
museum located in extant kārez segments in Turfan (Turfan Karez
Paradise). The museum was launched in 1992 with an investment by Xinjiang Karez Research Association. In 2000 a second
kārez museum opened its gates, Karez Folk Custom Garden, with
more pronounced event and commercial character. Both exhibitions stress the strong linkage between society and the specific
traditional water technology. In both Museums the attention and
the involvement of the Central Government in the integration of
the traditional technology into the political programs is demonstrated by documents (photographs, signed agreements etc.) of
visits to the Turfan kārez museums attended by several members
of the Central Government. This engagement demonstrates how
the kārez issue becomes a part of the strategic balance between
Central and Provincial Government regarding the major issue of
ethnic minority nationalities in the PR of China. A more recent evidence of the increase of political awareness towards the traditional technique is the ‘Ordinance of the Karez Protection in Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region’ released in 2006; this decision sets
the kārez networks in Xinjiang under the protection of the Water
Administration Department of the Province.
A new dimension in the political and public awareness regarding
qanāt/kārīz networks in both countries was introduced through
the UNESCO World Heritage List. The qanāt/kārīz network as
part of the cultural landscape of Bam was listed in 2004. In 2016
‘The Persian Qanāts’ including networks in eleven regions were
inscribed in the list with the recommendation of ‘extending the
management strategy and plans to include a risk preparedness
strategy and a comprehensive tourism strategy for all property
components.’
In China the ‘Karez Wells of Turfan’ have been in the tentative list
since 2008. New perspectives open, however, through the listing
of the Silk Roads (2014) for the PR of China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. In this frame the qanāt/kārīz technique can be considered as a link between China and the Iranian plateau in Central
Asia – an aspect that would allow new orientations in the touristic
policies of the countries involved regarding the qanāt/kārīz heritage issue across the Silk Road(s).
Contact the author
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
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CZECH REPUBLIC
WATER TOWERS
RESEARCH PROJECT
Dr Šárka Jiroušková
Water tower: a raised water storage structure serving to accumulate water, in particular to compensate uneven flows and consumption, to provide required pressure ratios in the network and
to create a reserve for short-term interruption of operation; the
water accumulation tank is located on the supporting structure at
the required height above the terrain according to the technical
requirements of the relevant water system.
A new research project will provide information on the history
of technical equipment of the buildings and settlements in water infrastructure in the Czech Republic. Modern infrastructure,
which we take for granted today, is the result of many years of
technical development, but the history of technical infrastructure
is forgotten.
An overview of the history of water distribution will be mapped
through tower water reservoirs, which are the visible structures
of water systems concealed underground. Despite its unequivocal structural arrangement, their construction and architectural
design are highly varied, often in an appropriate period style. The
research includes constructions from the medieval beginnings of
the water tower to the construction of water mains in the Czech
Republic to the present time.
Water towers are specific by the development of construction,
its inherent water technology and the application of architectural
period trends in these vertical constructions. Water in the Czech
Republic towers feature over 600 years of documented history.
Some of them served for over a hundred years. They have been
built with wood, steel, brick and concrete. Some of them are designed by the most important designers, builders and internationally renowned architects.
The first wooden water towers can be dated to the late Gothic
period and the early Renaissance. At that time, residential urbanization reaching a relatively high level, cities was growing, technology improving. There was a need to solve questions of living
conditions including water supply. Since then, the development of
water towers has continued. After the wooden towers, the era
of masonry towers arrived, using stone, brick and later cast from
concrete, with metal tanks in the 19th century. Steel structures (at
the beginning industrial ones) were also promoted, but gradually
expanded in the form of prefabricated buildings for public drinking
water supply.
14
Water tower from 1907, a combination of brickwork and concrete, architectural
design by Jan Kotěra ( architecturally important building in the Czech republic), construction by companies K. Kress and B. Hollmann, height 42 meters, steel tank with
a volume of 400 cubic meters, the reservoir supplied the territory of Vršovice, later
Braník, Krč and Michle.
A specific group are railway water towers. These buildings can be
considered without exaggeration as one of the most endangered
groups of historical industrial structures of the present time, as
they are no longer needed.
At the time of the expansion of modern municipal and urban water supply systems from the end of the 19th century, leading Czech
designers and construction companies tendered for the work.The
courage and creativity of the-then designers and builders resulted
in the design and construction of internationally-recognized buildings, especially design and constructions in the 1920s and 30s.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
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The water reservoir built in 1927 by A. Hádl and F. Hájek, utilization for the railway station Roudnice (supply of steam locomotives with water), reinforced concrete
structure with brick masonry, two reinforced concrete reservoirs (total volume of
120 cubic meters).
The construction of water towers, as well as water networks,
was formerly perceived as a prestigious event. Vertical structures
were a challenge for creative facade design. Although the design of
structures and façades are similar, each tower is an original.
This research project started in March and within five years the
seven-member research team will develop a database of water
tower reservoirs and will present their typology, architecture,
technological equipment, building historical surveys of selected
towers and assessing the importance of buildings with a view to
their preservation. The project will look for new uses for major
buildings that are no longer in operation.
The project also envisages that the facilities open to the public will
cooperate with the ERIH Czech Republic tourist network.
One of the oldest tower reservoirs in the Czech Republic, a building from quarry
stone, built in 1588-1592, supplied water from the Vltava River to the New Town of
Prague, in 1648 very damaged during the war, it served until 1881, height 47 meters,
is deflected from the vertical axis about 42 centimeters, in the past in the upper part
of the tower water reservoir with a volume of 2 cubic meters.
financially by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. Project leader Dr Robert Korinek follows up twelve years of research
and on the completed project of mapping of chimney water reservoirs in the Czech Republic. Proposals, recommendations and
comments are welcomed at the project manager’s address: robert.korinek@vuv.cz. The first results will be presented at a conference in Prague in 2019 and presentations of similar projects
from other countries will be welcomed. ture, which we take for
granted today, is the result of many years of technical development,
but the history of technical infrastructure is forgotten.
The research institution in charge of the project is T. G. Masaryk
Water Research Institute, a public research institution, supported
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GERMANY
GASHOLDERS, FROM
INDUSTRIAL RELIC TO
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Barbara Berger, Research Associate, Technical University of Munich
Before the rising structures of gasholders changed the cityscapes,
it was the gas light itself that was revolutionizing the daily life
in cities in the beginning of the 19th century. In 1813 public illumination from gas was inaugurated for the very first time in
the London district of Westminster. This new lighting technique
revolutionized cities worldwide, Paris in 1819, Hannover in 1825
and Turin 13 years later.
The gasholder was introduced as a technical building for the storage of locally produced coal gas. Its emerging iron structure presented a new kind of industrial architecture and became symbolic
of the gas industry.
The gasholder`s structure was determined by its function. It had
to fulfil two basic requirements: first a variable capacity, and secondly a gas-tight construction (See fig. 1). A water-based system
met both requirements. It was composed of a water tank and a
lift for the gas. The latter was immersed into the tank and rose
and fell according to the current content of the gas. An external
guide frame guaranteed the reliable movement of the lift. Because
of the increasing demand for gas, receptacles with more storage
were needed. In the 19th and early 20th century there were generally two different kinds of water sealed gasholders, the Belltype gasholder (or single-lift gasholder), and the Telescope-type
gasholder (or multi-lift gasholder).
Initially the lifts of both types were guided via an external linear
guide frame, but at the end of the 19th century the new spiral
guided technique allowed the building of gasholders even without
a guide frame. Another special form was the so-called gasholder
house, that totally hid the filigree iron structure of the gasholder;
façades were often architecturally ornate.
Reused gasholder house in Berlin (Photo: B Berger, 2013).
Over the century, development advanced from the water-sealed
to the waterless or dry-sealed system: the Piston-type gasholder
was invented 1913 in Germany. The new sealing technique was
adapted along the edge of the piston and guaranteed a gas tight
contact between the piston and the shell of the cylinder. This new
sealing technique led to a new appearance and form of the gasholder.
The arrival of natural gas was the beginning of the decline of coal
gas and historic gasholders because the increasing demand on gas
required new storage systems - thus new types of gasholders.
Today historic gasholders are industrial relics although very many
have already been demolished. The remaining examples are often
abandoned and their architectural value is not realized. A gasholder facilitates a column-free, tall, symmetrical space, that offers a
wide range of reuse projects.
One of the very first examples of revitalization was due to the
second world war: a massive gasholder house in Berlin was transformed into a bunker known as the ‘Fichtebunker’ (See fig. 2). The
inner lifts were demolished and the circular brick walls reinforced.
After being modified into a storage depot and shelter for homeless men and women this space is used nowadays as a museum.
However, the dome of the building was developed differently. Under the filigree iron structure, exclusive, elaborated loft houses
are located with a spectacular view over the city of Berlin.
Other very early examples of reused gasholder houses can also
Development of the gasholder (Berger B., 2017).
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be found in Scandinavia such as in Østre, Kopenhagen (DK) and in
Gävle (SE) the circular space was used as a theatre.
As part of the construction works for the Barcelona Olympic
Games in 1992 the guide frame of a freestanding gasholder was
integrated as a central, eye-catching structure in the middle of
the Parc de la Barceloneta. Not only water-sealed gasholders have
been successfully reused. As part of the International exhibition
Emscher Park (1989-1999) the tall piston-type gasholder of Oberhausen was transformed into a unique exhibition space, popular
for its excellent programs.
The number of reused gasholders increased with the turn of the
millennium. The famous the ensemble in Vienna from 2001, or the
gasholders in Leipzig, Dresden and Pforzheim, Germany. That the
reuse of rusty, industrial relics is getting more in vogue is demonstrated by King`s Cross in London. The elegant Victorian guide
frames of a historic gasholder triplet were implemented/ equipped
with apartments (on-going constructions works) and the fourth
gasholder was transformed into a park.
Reused guide frame as a park in Barcelona (B Heitzer, 2016).
ment, shape and structure as a part of engineering and industrial
heritage. Regarding its architectural value the gasholder should
be considered a suitable object for reuse rather than irreversible
demolition.
Contact the author
The history of gasholders underlines their significance, develop-
U.S.A Water, Continued
placed and part of it now houses an unrelated theater.
and early 20th century aqueducts and of the later deep tunnels
that now deliver water from the 1906 Wachusett Reservoir without pumping. These aqueducts, with their multiple dams and architect designed gatehouses, are being developed as walking trails.
The most notable aspect of Chicago’s water supply is the steps
taken to protect its Lake Michigan source. Water is drawn from
inlet ‘crib’ buildings out in the lake, 3 km in 1867, 8 km in 1874, and
fed to the city through tunnels below the lake. To keep the city’s
(originally untreated) sewage out of the lake, locks were installed
at the Chicago River’s mouth and its direction reversed, so that it
flows through a canal towards the Mississippi River.
Exceptionally, Boston and New York have retained water catchments of such high quality that virtually no treatment or filtration
is necessary.
Three iconic waterworks sites with no steam pumping engines. Of
the following three differing types of sites, only one is a museum.
They have varying iconic status for their cities.
Fairmont Waterworks Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its
photogenic early 19th century, Neo-Classical pavilions on a dam
once housed water driven pumps, little of which survives. The
poor quality of the city’s water sources requires constantly upgraded, with intensive multi-stage treatment.
‘Water Tower’ (standpipe) and Pumping Station Chicago, IL. These
two rock-faced, limestone, 1869, parochial Neo-Gothic buildings
are not a museum. However, due to its form, location, and having
survived the 1871 Chicago Fire, the Water Tower is a symbol of
the city. The pumping station’s historic equipment has been re-
Old Croton Aqueduct, New York City. There is also no New York
waterworks museum, only the 42 km Old Croton Aqueduct State
Historic Park which follows much of its route north of the city.
Although barely evident in the city, except for its ‘High Bridge’
across the North River to Manhattan, the 66 km, 1837-42, aqueduct retains an iconic status. Long out of service, its original dam
and monumental receiving reservoir are lost. The central arches
of the High Bridge, as built, the longest, tallest aqueduct type
bridge in the U.S., were replaced by a 1927 steel span.
Two not-accessible, operating water works with inactive tripleexpansion engines.
River Pumping Station, Cincinnati, Ohio. Houses three beautifully
U.S.A. WATER continued, next page
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
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WORLDWIDE
Steam machines from
1904, at “Walcownia”,
Museum of Zinc Rolling
Mill. (Photo: P. Gerber
2017).
POLAND
industrial buildings once held are a rarer beast.
BIG STUFF 2019
Alison Wain
Canberra, in Australia, was the site of the first Big Stuff conference, a gathering of people who grappled daily with the challenges
of technology objects that were too big to fit in showcases, too
big to be handled easily, routinely tested the limits of floor loadings and expense budgets, and brought up awkward questions of
operation vs static display. Conferences focusing on industrial built
heritage are a regular occurrence, but meetings that delve into the
different ways to preserve, restore and display the machines that
U.S.A Water, Continued
preserved R.D. Wood 115-million liters/day, vertical triple-expansion engines, arranged in a triangle within a cylindrical caisson
reaching below the level of adjacent Ohio River. It is inaccessible
in a wooded setting within a modern water treatment facility site.
The first Big Stuff meeting was highly practical, with papers covering the details of significance assessment, maintenance, and handling methods. It also challenged received wisdom on the need to
remove original nitrate doped fabric from aircraft, and the need
to strip paint right down to the metal and repaint it, showing that
old materials that would not function well in a service environment are often just fine in a heritage environment, and keep the
history and provenance of an object intact. The meeting clearly
filled a gap in the heritage world, and in 2007 it was held again at
the Deutsches Bergbau (German Mining) Museum in Bochum in
Germany.
The first conference had focused on cultural heritage that, while
for twice that number. It draws Lake Erie water through a tunnel
from a 1913 ‘crib’ 2 km. off shore. Because Buffalo’s population
has radically decreased, there is little evident external upgrading
of the facility.
Col. Francis G. Ward Pumping Station, Buffalo, New York. Has five
1914 Holly vertical triple-expansion engines within a vast hall built
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TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
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WORLDWIDE
large, was still movable, and indeed made to move – boats, planes
and vehicles - while the Bochum conference focused on the superscale heritage of the mining industry, where the machinery in many
cases is also a building. This raises a different set of challenges, as
while the machinery is no longer required to function, the original
maintenance regimes and the operational income that made them
possible are also usually gone. A heritage income stream rarely
brings in the cash to support permanent teams of painters, and in
the outdoor environment the large metal elements of mining and
smelting industries take on a colourful patina of rust – beautiful in
its way, but not an authentic representation of the original life of
the machinery, or a recipe for long-term survival.
The 2010 conference at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford,
UK, had a strong emphasis on planning, and managing people’s expectations. These issues are not specific to large objects, but large
often means also long lived, with objects having multiple owners
and changes in function and operating parameters. A lorry may be
in one paint scheme, but be required for a display about an earlier
phase of its life when it had a different paint job, different wheels
or a different superstructure. How do you keep the history that
makes an old machine special, but display it in ways that audiences
can understand and relate to?
together, with detailed papers on conservation treatment and research sharing space with strong initiatives in risk management,
planning, significance and new display development. The importance of drawing on experience, methods and innovations from
other areas of conservation and heritage was recognized and the
Big Stuff community began discussing how to define a distinct
identity as well as connect with other communities of practice
and knowledge.
This process will be continued at the next full Big Stuff conference, which will be held at the Zinc Metallurgy Museum ‘Walcownia’ in Katowice in Upper Silesia, Poland, on 12-13 September,
2019. This conference will also discuss the future of large scale
industrial heritage in the face of a rapidly changing environment,
where social relations, architectural and urban design, landscape
environments, transport and spatial functions are all being transformed, and where climate change adds another unknown to the
preservation of machinery and the historic buildings that house it.
If you are interested in presenting at the 2019 conference, please
send a 500 word abstract to Alison Wain. Papers from the conferences, and updates on the 2019 conference, are available on the
Big Stuff website.
With the 2013 conference at the Canada Science and Technology,
and Aviation and Space Museums, and the 2015 conference at the
Centre Historique Minier in Lewarde, France, these threads came
Opinions expressed in the Bulletin are the authors’, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TICCIH. Photographs are the authors’
unless stated otherwise.
TICCIH
President: Professor Patrick Martin, Professor of Archaeology
Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931, USA
e: pemartin@mtu.edu, t: +1 906-487-2070
Secretary: Stephen Hughes
e: secretary@ticcih.org, t: +44 1970 621215
Editor: Articles and news of recent and future events should be
sent to the Editor, James Douet, C. Bruc, 176, 2. 4., Barcelona
08037, Spain, e: editor@ticcih.org
Bulletin layout: Daniel Schneider, e: ticcih@mtu.edu
TICCIH Membership: Daniel Schneider, e: ticcih@mtu.edu
TICCIH Website: Daniel Schneider, e: ticcih@mtu.edu
TICCIH is the world organization for industrial archaeology
promoting conservation, research, recording and education in all
aspects of industrial heritage. It holds a triennial conference and
organises interim conferences on particular themes. Individual
membership is $30 (USD), corporate membership $65, and student membership. $15
There is an online membership form on www.ticcih.org
The TICCIH Bulletin welcomes news, comment and (shortish)
articles from anyone who has something they want to say related
to our field. The Bulletin is the only international newsletter dedicated to industrial archaeology and the conservation of the heritage of industrialisation. The TICCIH Bulletin is published online to
members four times a year.
Back issues can be downloaded as a pdf file from the
TICCIH web site, www.ticcih.org.
ISSN: 1605-6647
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
19
TICCIH NEWS
HELP SHAPE TICCIH’S
FUTURE: 2018 ELECTIONS
Stephen Hughes, TICCIH Secretary
Elections will be held at this September’s TICCIH congress in
Santiago de Chile to determine the President and Board of TICCIH for the next three years. Under the TICCIH constitution, the
composition of the Board will be decided at the General Assembly
in Santiago on 14 September, 2018.
All National Representatives are entitled to vote so it is very
important that TICCIH members contact their National Representatives to discuss potential candidates, but also to state their
preferences once the candidates are known. This is a great opportunity to influence the of future of TICICH, and to ensure that
it has the drive and energy to tackle the challenges facing our
organisation over the coming years.
You will be able to find information on National Representatives
on the TICCIH website. Any paid-up member of TICCIH can
stand for the TICCIH Board, to help guide and develop the organisation across the three years between congresses. If you are not
sure whether you have paid for 2018 check the online Directory
of members at www.ticcih.org . It is very easy to attend Board
meetings as most are held virtually over the Internet. They are
at least once and usually several times a year, sometimes also at
a convenient TICCIH, ICOMOS or other conference or meeting.
TICCIH BOARD
MEETINGS 2017
The TICCIH Board usually has at least two to three meetings a
year, chaired by the President, Professor Patrick Martin. In 2017
two of them were held online and took place on 14 April and 26
July, attended by Board Members from fourteen countries across
five continents. Sir Neil Cossons and Eusebi Casanelles, both former Presidents and current vice-presidents for life, were in attendance on the meeting on 26 July.
On-line Board Meetings are an effective way of carrying forward
our work, but face to face meetings are also valuable for a more
detailed discussion of some issues and for wider liaison. A third
and open Board Meeting was held in Delhi on 10 December attended by six Board members and over thirty members of the
public from twelve different countries (see below for a report on
the Delhi Board Meeting).
20
Candidates need to be nominated and seconded by two other
current paid up members. Nomination forms will be issued shortly to all National Representatives and nominations can be made
not less than fourteen nor more than thirty-five clear days before
the date appointed for the meeting (that is between Friday 10
and Friday 31 August). Nomination forms can also be obtained
directly from the TICCIH Secretary.
The present TICCIH President, Professor Patrick Martin, has
served three consecutive terms and so is not eligible for re-election. According to the TICCIH statutes, presidential candidates
should be an active member of the TICCIH Board. TICCIH has
a maximum of fourteen, one third (i.e. 5) of whom must retire at
each General Assembly although they can stand for re-election.
Nomination forms can be obtained from the Secretary.
The following four Board members were first elected at Freiberg
in 2009 and are due to step down, though they can be re-elected:
Hsiao-Wei Lin of Taiwan, R.O.C.; Professor Massimo Preite of Italy;
Dr. Iain Stuart of Australia and Patrick Viaene of Belgium. There
may be more vacancies as not all the Board members have confirmed with the Secretary if they want to continue or not.
My thanks on behalf of TICCIH for all those who have so generously given of their time to further the progress of the organisation
At both online meetings the TICCIH Treasurer, David Worth, produced detailed reports explaining the healthy state of TICCIH’s
finances. The principal financial activity has been the funding and
production of this, our quarterly TICCIH Bulletin, and the regular
publication and very full content were commended by the whole
Board. A new funded activity for this year has been the international thematic studies programme in fulfilment of the joint TICCIH - International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)
action plan. The Water Industry Thematic Study and Barcelona
Conference is presented elsewhere in this issue of the Bulletin.
Joint TICCIH/ICOMOS World Heritage Studies have facilitated
the recent inscription of many industrial and functional world
heritage sites and landscapes on the World Heritage List.
Daniel Schneider of the TICCIH office at Houghton, Michigan
Technological University, was in attendance at the meeting on 26
July and commended for both his work in making the office efficient and in undertaking the layout and distribution of the Bulletin.
A major part of both meetings was taken up with the develop-
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
20
TICCIH NEWS
ing relationship between TICCIH and ICOMOS based on two
evolving processes. The first was the opportunity to build on
the TICCIH - ICOMOS Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
which had been approved at the Florence General Assembly in
2014. The second was the ongoing examination within ICOMOS
of whether to set-up an Industrial Heritage International Scientific
Committee (ISC) to sit alongside some thirty other functional
committees in its internal structure.
To explore these topics the TICCIH Secretary, Stephen Hughes,
gave a presentation on the joint work of TICCIH and ICOMOS in
Sydney, Australia, in January 2017 and spoke to the Chair of the
ICOMOS Advisory Committee Sheridan Burke and Peter Phillips,
one of the ICOMOS vice-presidents.
In March 2017 the ICOMOS Board approved the TICCIH - ICOMOS Action plan and ICOMOS vice President Grellan Rourke
subsequently started discussions for a proposal for a joint twoyear Action Plan for implementing the MOU. The TICCIH President, Patrick Martin, and Secretary, Stephen Hughes, worked with
Grellan in producing a draft two-year action plan which closely
mirrored the structure of the MOU. Attached to the action plan
was an annex for a renewed programme of World Heritage Studies which was circulated to the TICCIH Board.
A working group of the President, Secretary and Board Member
Irina Iamandescu, who is Secretary of ICOMOS Romania, would
continue to co-ordinate with the ICOMOS Initiative examining
the effectiveness of its own arrangements on the Industrial Heritage.
19TH ICOMOS TRIENNIAL
GENERAL ASSEMBLY, DELHI,
11-15 DECEMBER 2017
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)
has held General Assemblies annually since 2015. However, its
main General Assembly, during which its President, officers and
Board are elected, doctrinal texts are adopted, and resolutions
proposed for adoption, is held only every three years. Some 800
delegates attended the Delhi Meeting last December, one of six
(out of 19) held outside Europe since this particular large meeting
of heritage professionals and enthusiasts was first established in
1960.
March 2017-18 is the first year in which the joint TICCIH-ICOMOS Action Plan is operationa. ICOMOS’s own proposed Industrial Heritage International Scientific Committee (ISC) was also
being also considered for adoption, so it was particularly important for TICCIH Board Members to be present.
On the morning preceding the formal start of the Assembly the
results of a questionnaire on the possible formation of an Industrial Heritage ISC were discussed at the ICOMOS Scientific Council
Meeting. Several countries considered that the importance of the
Industrial Heritage merited its inclusion in the formal structure of
ICOMOS. The continuing critical role of liaison with TICCIH was
acknowledged.
The Annual General Meeting of the 20th Century Heritage ISC
Committee attracted some fifty delegates. The relationship be-
The TICCIH Secretary Stephen Hughes talking to Indian delegates at the ISC Forum
in Delhi (Photo Miles Oglethorpe).
tween the ICOMOS 20th Century Committee and the earlier
(1988) International Committee for documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the modern
movement (DOCOMOMO) is seen by many in ICOMOS as future a model for that between TICCIH and ICOMOS. In 2014, the
committee had published the international standard Approaches
for the Conservation of the Twentieth Century Architectural
Heritage (‘the Madrid Document’) which had been extended to
include urban areas and landscapes and was launched by the outgoing ICOMOS President, Gustavo Araoz.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
21
TICCIH NEWS
The author has been acting as the liaison point between the ISC
20 and TICCIH in extending and enhancing the Madrid Document
to cover the industrial heritage of the period and in the on-going
work as previously on the ambitious Getty Institute co-ordinated
20th Century Historic Thematic Framework Project Document
(as previously reported in the TICCIH Bulletin).
Stephen Hughes reported on TICCIH’s contribution to 20th century industrial heritage World Heritage studies which was widely
acknowledged.
The first formal day of the Assembly on the 11 December largely
consisted of the ICOMOS Advisory Committee Meeting, attended by ICOMOS National Presidents or leaders of national representatives. The TICCIH President Patrick Martin attended as an
observer whilst the TICCIH Secretary Stephen Hughes (UK) and
TICCIH Board Member Irina Iamandescu (Romania) were there
as heads of their national ICOMOS delegations. The break provided the opportunity for the first of two meetings with ICOMOS vice-president Grellan Rourke (Ireland) who sees an internal
ICOMOS Industrial Heritage ISC as necessary for effective liaison
with TICCIH. The Chair of the Advisory Committee, Sheridan
Burke, conveyed the recommendation that an Industrial Heritage
Committee be set-up to the national representatives. The TICCIH Secretary welcomed the fact that ICOMOS recognised the
value of the industrial heritage but noted that it was also very
important that the action plan already agreed between TICCIH
and ICOMOS be activated. It is intended that the form of the
ICOMOS Industrial Heritage ISC should be approved by the ICOMOS Board in March 2018.
In the evening there was an open meeting consisting of several
TICCIH Board members: Patrick Martin, Hsiao-Wei Lin, Miles
Oglethorpe, Florence Hachez-Leroy, Irina Iamandescu, Stephen
Hughes and over thirty members of the public from no less than
twelve different countries: India, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan
ROC, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Slovenia,
Portugal, Poland and the U.K. Patrick Martin gave an introductory
talk on work of TICCIH and this was followed by a lively question
and answer session. It was emphasised that a particular value of
industrial heritage thematic studies has been a multiplication in
the number of industrial heritage World Heritage sites to about
72, an expediential rise from the 1990s.
It was accepted that the fee structure of TICCIH at present reflects the developed world. Patrick Martin noted that this will be
changing in the coming year and will become graduated so that
members from countries with a lower GDP will pay lower fees.
On the third evening of the conference there was a very successful forum held on the ‘Silver Oak Lawn’ when TICCIH and various
International Scientific Committees (ISCs) were given stalls at the
conference venue and food provided. TICCIH Board members
staffed the stall and much interest was shown in the TICCIH Bulletin pages and membership leaflets presented on the stall particularly by Indian attendees at the conference who may not have
encountered TICCIH beforehand.
On the fourth day well over 100 delegates packed into a workshop organised by ICOMOS Netherlands on ‘Water and Heritage
for the Future.’ Previous to the meeting the TICCIH President
and Secretary had met with the workshop organiser Henk van
Schaik to discuss co-ordination between TICCIH and this initiative
which is exploring the desirability of establishing a new international scientific committee (ISC) on the topic and will submit a
report in 2018. The Secretary has since been invited to join the
steering-group of the Netherlands Water Initiative.
The conference concluded with the election of Toshiyuki Kono of
Japan as the new ICOMOS President and Peter Phillips of Australia as the new ICOMOS Secretary General.
RENEW YOUR TICCIH
MEMBERSHIP FOR 2018 TODAY!
WWW.TICCIH.ORG/JOIN-TICCIH
TICCIH: The International Committee for the
Conservation of Industrial Heritage
22
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
22
INDUSTRIAL MUSEUMS
INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM
DIRECTIONS
Sònia Hernández is
the director of the
Museu Agbar de les
Aigües in Barcelona
which jointly hosted
with TICCIH the thematic water conference in April. The
museum is a private
one, owned by the
Aigües de Barcelona
corporation - Agbar but this is no ordinary
corporate museum.
SÒNIA HERNÁNDEZ
The Central de Cornellà waterworks, which is the home and
most important object of the collection of the Museu Agbar de
les Aigües, took an unorthodox route from old steam pumping
station to a museum of water. It opened in 2004 after a cool,
considered examination of what such a conserved site should
and could become. Director Sonia Hernandez took over six years
later, and she still has a clear idea of what the museum is and who
it is for. While the 1909 engine and boiler house and the four
horizontal engines built by the Société Lyonnaise de Mécanique et
d’Électricité are the centrepiece of the exhibitions, it is definitely
water, rather than steam, which is at the heart of the museum’s
strategy. ‘The industrial heritage formed by the buildings and machinery must be valued as part of a global discourse. But the main
theme of the museum should be the management of water in the
urban environment: the integral cycle of water from a metabolic
point of view.’ The waterworks, largely complete, stands in a grassy
enclave on the southern edge of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, and the museum sees the industrial heritage, the gardens
and the invisible aquifer underground, from which modern pumps
continue to raise water, as the three legs on which the museum’s
discourse stands.
The permanent exhibition has remained stable, based around the
restored steam engines and boilers, while the programme of compact temporary exhibitions is built around single evocative objects, like a water inspector’s hat.The museum’s acquisitions policy
is also restricted to the heritage of Agbar. Sònia describes this
collection as representing the tangible ‘know-how’ of the company. It is also coherent with the large industrial collections of the
national Catalan museum of science and industry, the MNACTEC,
as well as the Barcelona city museum, MUHBA, whose network of
historic sites includes a small pumping station on the other side
of the city.
Aigües de Barcelona is celebrating this year its 150th anniversary.
In differing forms the company has been supplying water to the
citizens and industries of Barcelona since the early years of its
transformation into one of the only cities in southern Europe to
experience industrialisation. That Agbar is proud of this history
is evident in the Cornellà pumping station, but it is also aware of
how a water museum is capable of advancing the company’s modern strategic aims. A private company needs a good relationship
with its customers - invitations to the museum sent out with the
water bill nudged up the number of visitors this year - , and making
customers aware of the water cycle and the priority of sustainability is vital in the context of Mediterranean rainfall levels. Sònia
stresses that ‘the environmental factor and civic awareness should
not be too explicit in the museum’s discourse, but it must be present indirectly: it must impregnate everything. The museum and its
activity must speak by themselves. Sustainability is an inseparable
part of the company’s water management story.’
The joint thematic conference with TICCIH, described below, was
one of the public events planned to promote the museum internationally, and as well as being a member of TICCIH the museum is
part of the ERIH network of European industrial museums, within the thematic Water Route. In an international context, what
distinguishes the Central Cornellà and its steam engines is their
use to generate electricity for the electric borehole pumps which
raised water from the aquifer, rather than to pump it directly. As
the conference discussed, this puts the Central at the beginning
of the end of the steam pumping station as a proud statement
of modernity and civic responsibility. So it is apt that the Museu
Agbar de les Aigües has these same virtues as its modern mission.
The Museum won the Micheletti European Museum of the Year
award in 2010 for its ‘kaleidoscopic’ understanding of water from
a scientific, environmental, social and humanistic perspective. Last
year 48,000 people came to the museum, about a third school
groups, and this is the highest number since the museum opened.
The sizable educational team provides support and material for
teachers, from primary through to high school groups, with thematic weeks tied to the calendar of Science Week in November
or World Water Day in March.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
23
CONFERENCE REPORTS
Sònia Hernández (centre right front row) with TICCIH life president Eusebi Casanelles and all the delegates at the TICCIH water conference in April on the steps of the
Cornellá engine house. (Photo: Museu Agbar de les Aigües)
SPAIN
INTERNATIONAL HERITAGE
OF THE WATER INDUSTRY,
TICCIH THEMATIC
CONFERENCE, APRIL 13-14,
2018, BARCELONA
Meisha Hunter, Senior Preservationist, Li/Saltzman
Architects
The thematic conference which rounded off the TICCIH comparative study of the water industry heritage was educational in
content, inspiring in terms of architecture and engineering, and intimate in scale. The event drew international representation from
fifteen countries including Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, South Korea,
China and the United States. On the first day, attendees were
24
welcomed by Sònia Hernández, Director of Agbar’s Museu de les
Aigües, and TICCIH’s President Professor Patrick Martin, as they
sat in a beautifully repurposed former water reservoir that is currently the museum’s conference venue.
The conference proceedings kicked off with a keynote address by
Professor Martin Melosi, Director of the Center for Public History
at the University of Houston. Dr Melosi focused on the water industry and the 19th century sanitary crisis, with historic examples
drawn from around the globe illustrating the integral relationship
between water delivery and sanitation over time. The conference
organizer, James Douet, shared the conclusions from TICCIH’s
comparative study of the water industry in which criteria are being proposed for considering World Heritage nominations, as well
for assessing historic water industry sites everywhere Augsburg
is on the German tentative list and its integrated group of water
sites, dating from the 12th century to the 1970 Olympics, was
presented by architect Rolf Höhmann. The two very large water
treatment sites in Prague are also being tentatively proposed, and
their history was explained by Dr Šárka Jiroušková.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
24
CONFERENCE REPORTS
Far Left: TICCIH President
Patrick Martin discusses
water heritage with conference delegates.
Left: The author of the TICCIH thematic study of the
industrial heritage of water,
James Douet. The report
will be formally submitted
to ICOMOS later this year,
and can be downloaded
from the TICCIH web site.
Dr Manel Martin, the historian of Barcelona’s water supply, illustrated the city’s protracted issues with sourcing reliable and
abundant supplies of drinking water, as well as the challenges of
the city’s wastewater infrastructure. Dr Jorge Tartarini, Director
of the Museo del Agua at the Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes in
Argentina, focused on one of the city’s architecturally stunning
reservoirs, which artfully concealed the water functionality within
its walls. Finally Professor Susan Ross illustrated how attitudes
towards water infrastructure altered once the sanitary crisis had
passed with the water reservoirs built for Toronto, once landscaped parks, but later covered over.
ed to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Museum’s grounds, including
several preserved boreholes around the property. The second
day of the conference offered (whirlwind!) guided tours of select
Barcelona’s water heritage sites, including the Torreo del Tibidabo,
the Casa de les Aigües, and the Torre de les Aigues del Besòs. Arguably, the soaring brick arches of the former 15,000 m3 capacity
reservoir (Edificio de les Aigues) recently repurposed as a library
for Universitat Pompeu Fabra was the highlight of the day.
After the first day’s proceedings, conference attendees were treat-
industry and politics which is difficult to preserve.
GERMANY
NUCLEAR POWER
STATIONS: HERITAGE VALUES
AND PRESERVATION
PERSPECTIVES, DEUTSCHES
TECHNIKMUSEUM BERLIN,
20 -21 OCTOBER,2017
Norbert Tempel, TICCIH Germany Representative
The consequence of the German Federal Government’s 2011 decision to abandon nuclear energy is that the seven nuclear power
stations still in operation will be closed down by 2022. The buildings erected for nuclear power generation are worth preserving,
but at the same time they are an uncomfortable legacy of German
Preservation of a large-scale nuclear power station has not been
investigated or discussed so far. According to the legal situation
in Germany, there are plans to dismantle these power stations
completely and without exception, which in a few years will lead
to the loss of all architectural witnesses of nuclear power generation in Germany.
The aim of a well-attended conference in Berlin in October 2017
was to discuss how to handle in a conscious and differentiated
way the important architectural heritage of an industry that has
probably preoccupied and impacted society like no other in recent history. Without discussing the possible monument values
and characteristics, without evaluating the chances to preserve
characteristic elements of these power plants, and without an
early integration of conservation and monument concerns into
the long preparation of the costly dismantling, then interventions
at a later stage will involve tremendous costs and an enormous
planning effort.
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
25
CONFERENCE REPORTS
Even today it is obvious that the preservation of nuclear power
stations has to face two major challenges regarding their authenticity and integrity: on the one hand, the radioactive pollution of
certain buildings and their technical equipment; on the other hand,
the idealistic ‘charge’ as a result of decades of fundamental discussions about the use and the consequences of power generation through nuclear fission. While radioactive pollution limits the
preservation of nuclear power stations in their entirety, the political debate splits the involved stakeholders and interest groups
into two camps. To preserve closed-down nuclear power stations
as listed monuments is a complex responsibility for the parties
concerned, not just technically but also socially and politically.
Michael Maria Bastgen and Dominik Geppert reported on the
heritage value of nuclear power stations and their preservation
perspectives. They explained the very different chances of preserving pressure and boiling-water reactors. In addition they suggested that the produc¬tion chain of nuclear power, from uranium
mining to final storage (a question that is unsolved until today!),
should also be made visible.
The so-called ‘nuclear egg’ in Garching was the first research reactor to be listed as a
monument in Germany, in 1997 (Creative Commons).
In his introduction to the conference, Thorsten Dame wished to
open the urgent debate in time, relying on an exchange of experience between all parties involved in the operation, dismantling
and potential preservation. Experts from Germany and abroad
discussed models for the definition of the monument value, for
documenting and safeguarding entire nuclear plants and/or parts
of them. The experiences already made in neighbouring European
countries gave information about chances, questions and conflicts.
These matters were discussed and evaluated by comparing them
for the first time in Germany, although a conference ‘Nuclear Legacies’ was held in Stockholm in September 2017, as reported by
Magdalena Tafvelin Heldner.
In his keynote speech, Frank Uekötter introduced the development of the ‘nuclear dream’ in western Germany. When the first
nuclear power stations were built in the 1960s and ‘70s they were
considered as part of a more comprehensive fuel cycle which itself was only one dimension of the ‘atomic age’ dreamed of in the
1950s. His lecture outlined the long path from utopian expectations to real technologies, which was accompanied, not only in
Germany, by continuous disappointments. He presented his idea
of carrying out the museumisation of nuclear power in Germany
against instead of together with the objects. Some participants
from eastern Germany missed the description of the very different development of nuclear power generation in the GDR.
26
Gunnar Klack de¬scribed the various construction types which
were developed according to the operating principles of the reactors used. He pointed out the essential steps in the development of technology and design that eventually resulted in the
constructions representing the architectural heritage of nuclear
energy production. Ralf Borchardt described the major operations
of disassembling a nuclear power plant, using the example of the
Greifswald nuclear power station. Germany has a rich experience
in the dismantling and decontamination of nuclear sites. The first
commercial nuclear power station (Kahl) was closed down in
1985 and needed some 25 years for total dismantling.
A special case in Austria, ‘the Gentle Marketing of the Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Station’ was reported by Stefan Zach. In the
late 1970s a power station which was never put into operation
deeply changed Austria. In a referendum, Austrian citizens decided
not to operate the first and only nuclear power station constructed in their country. In 2005 the EVN (an energy and environ¬ment
company from Lower Austria) took over the site. The area measuring 24 hectares is an authorised site for a power station in a
prime location (at the banks of the Danube). For the time being
there is no need for any large power plant of whichever kind of
technology. Nonetheless, it has been possible to create a place
for excursions to the site, interpretation, conferences, events and
leisure. A monument without legal monument protection…
The only realistic way to preserve a nuclear power plant seems
to be keeping a reactor that was ready built but never went into
operation. In Germany there is an opportunity to preserve one
NUCLEAR POWER, CONTINUED NEXT PAGE
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
26
CONFERENCE REPORTS
CZECH REPUBLIC
RAILWAY HERITAGE:
SPECIFICS, CHALLENGES AND
LIMITS OF PRESERVATION
AND THE NEW USE,
20 OCTOBER 2017, CZECH
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY
(CTU), PRAGUE
Karel Hájek
The third annual conference organized by the PhD study programme Architecture and Building Engineering of the Department
of Architecture, at the CTU. Although railway heritage is a very
topical issue, especially in connection with on-going large-scale
railway modernization projects, this area remains somewhat at
the periphery of public interest.
The morning block of lectures was focused on mapping the historical development of railway structures, evaluation of their impact
on the development of urbanism, architecture, civil engineering,
and heritage conservation in this area. Axel Föhl provided an insight into the history of world railway structures, not only with
regard to its influence on the further development of architecture
and civil engineering, but also mentioning the modern milestones
that contributed to interest in the preservation of industrial monuments, and to the definition of principles of preserving the 19th
century industrial heritage.
Franziska Bollerey, an architectural historian and a Dutch emeritus professor at the Technical University Delft, devoted her presentation Railway Station – Gateway to the Life of the City to
NUCLEAR POWER, CONTINUED
complete non-contaminated Russian type WWER-440/213,
408 MW in Greifswald-Lubmin, on the shore of the Baltic Sea.
Unfortunately the accompanying steam turbines, housed in one
of the largest industrial halls in Germany, were scrapped – to
create a space for wind turbine manufacturing! But perhaps a
reactor building, heavily damaged by the disassembly of all nuclear contaminated parts, might be a ‘monument of the threats
of radiation’ by using nuclear energy?
Axel Föhl with examples of the successful implementation of re-use principles reconstructing major stations such as the London St. Pancras and King’s Cross terminals or
the Parisian Gare du Nord or Gare Central.
the long-term research of metropolitan life in artistic expression,
film, and photography. Her contribution introduced the station as
a modern gateway to the city, a melting pot of transport, social
phenomena, and social purposes. Interpretation of artistic expressions within transport and industrial buildings and structures is a
long-term theme of the research by Prof. Francizka Bollerey and
Axel Föhl. In cooperation with the Faculty of Civil Engineering at
CTU in Prague, the publication Industrial and Art mapping these
manifestations both temporally and geographically, and also in
connection with given typologies – and transport structures, was
published in Czech.
Alena Borovcová of the Czech National Heritage Institute summarised the results of long-term research into the history of rail
transport from the point of view of heritage care and conservation. The methods of coping with the extensive building and technical fund of the Czech railway network and the setting of assess-
and the UK, was organised by the Technical University Berlin, the
German national committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the German section of TICCIH and
the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin. Conference papers will be
published end of 2018 as print and PDF versions in German and
English and will be announced in the TICCIH Bulletin. Contact via
t.dame@campus.tu-berlin.de
Contact the author
The conference, with some 80 participants and speakers not
only from Germany and Austria but also from Sweden, France
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
27
CONFERENCE REPORTS
ment criteria for an empirically immeasurable monument value
can help other experts to systematically map the extensive fund
of preserved railway structures.
Jiří Kupka of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, CTU, focused on the
urban planning relations of the integration of the railway into the
landscape and its historical and contemporary impact on landscape character, especially the demanding, and from a long-term
aspect, not always unambiguous evaluation of positive and negative interventions of railway management into landscape values.
Afternoon presentations focused on the re-use potentials and
examples of different conversions of rail architecture. The speakers presented a number of successful examples of building conversions from abroad (Karel Hájek: Experience from Abroad with
Conversions of Railway Structures), a comprehensive approach
to the rescue and restoration of the defunct local railway (Lenka
Zelená: Zubrnice Museum Railway), or the successful reconstruction of the torsion of the historically protected railway structure
for the needs of the railway museum (Petr Lédl: Kořenov Locomotive Shed). On the other hand, the unfortunate fate of the dilapidated art nouveau building of the Prague Vyšehrad Railway Station
serves as a significant reminder for today’s times (Jiří Chmelenský:
Vyšehrad Railway Station and Its Destiny).
The closing block of the conference was dedicated to presenting successful examples of an active approach to finding a new
life for abandoned or unused railway buildings for cultural and
community purposes, such as the Plzeň Jižní předměstí (in Eng-
lish: Pilsen South Suburbs). In their presentations, they described
the Plzeňská zastávka (in English: Pilsen Railway Station) project
(Helena Šimicová: Plzeňská zastávka – a conversion project implemented by three women), and the Žilina Zárečie (Marek Adamov:
Stanica Žilina Cultural Centre). Another example of Radlická kulturní sportovna (in English: Radlice Cultural Gym) showed the
limits of the sustainability of these projects in practice (Jakub Zajíc: Radlická kulturní sportovna), similar to the documentary film
Industrials which was made by two students, and was created at
the Research Centre of Industrial Heritage under the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague (Petra Boudová, Veronika Kastlová - Industrials).
Because there is not enough space to provide an overview of
all twenty presentations that were given at the conference, the
above mentioned selection is also a caption for an upcoming publication, which is being prepared this year under the supervision of
Assoc. Prof. Lenka Popelová and Prof. Tomáš Šenberger. It will deal
in more detail with the topic of protection and use of the railway
heritage and summarise the outputs of the conference and other
activities of the PhD study programme Sustainable Development
and Industrial Heritage under the Department of Architecture of
the Faculty of Civil Engineering at CTU in Prague, which is highly
concerned with railway heritage. The conference was organized in
cooperation with the National Heritage Institute represented by
Ing. arch. Eva Dvořáková.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Over the last twenty years the author, a member of the board of
TICCIH, AIPAI and ERIH, has paid attention to the regeneration
phenomena in Italy and across Europe. The volume, which follows
the essay “Toward the Industrial Heritage”, offers a critical review
of the interventions of regeneration and valorization of the last
30 years.
Paesaggi Industriali e
Patrimonio UNESCO
Massimo Preite
C&P Adver Effigi, 2018
Reviewed by Edoardo Currà, Professor of Building Design for Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome
In Paesaggi industriali e Patrimonio Unesco (Industrial Landscapes
and Heritage of UNESCO) Massimo Preite delineates a general
frame concerning the nature of industrial landscapes in Italy and in
Europe. He also illustrates the presence and the role of this kind
of heritage in UNESCO’s categories.
The Italian title involves the definition of the industrial landscape.
28
The book was presented at the faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome last April, and in that
occasion the urbanist Paolo Colarossi recalled that there are dozens of definitions of landscape, but among them the most interesting, according to a multi-disciplinary approach, are the ones
which highlight the relations between natural territory and human
modifications.
For this reason Preite open the discussion with mining landscapes,
where the past big anthropic activity is resolved in a strong trans-
TICCIH Bulletin No. 80, 2nd Quarter 2018
28
BOOKS RECEIVED
formation of the territory that is not only ‘poised’ above the natural environment, but which is also characterized by the material
modification of the superficial layers of the earth’s crust.
There are other categories of landscape associated with the mining areas, dependent on the nature of the production, the belonging or not to an urban landscape. In the volume these are discussed
with reference to Italy and then to Europe, so gradually the text
reaches the heart of the theme, the industrial landscapes in the
UNESCO list. Therefore, in the first paragraph of the fourth part,
landscape is rated as the appropriate discipline, the right scale, to
measure the issues of the decommissioned industrial areas and to
work in order to achieve an effective regeneration.
In many cases the plan and the project have passed through a
strategy of transformation of the industrial landscape into a cultural landscape.
Borsi, in his introduction of the catalogue of the exhibition “Le
paysage de l’industrie” (Brussels, 1975) individuates some difficulties in recognizing Industrial site in terms of the “landscape”. The
industrial landscape is a negative asset whose appreciation, in addition to excluding any referral to principles of natural beauty, can
absolutely not be limited to simple consideration of the plasticarchitectural or functional aspects.
Instead, a complex multidisciplinary approach is needed to fully
understand the historicity of the landscape, as a product of human’s fatigue and as a visible sign of anthropic action. Here mankind made extensive use of technical-scientific knowledge.
The author recommends that in coming years the World Heritage Committee, in the elaboration and refinement of its heritage
categories, reclassifies the concept of cultural evolutionary landscape in such a way as to give recognition also to those landscapes
(like industrial ones) in which the value of historical testimony is
paramount compared to less characterizing naturalistic or sustainability values.
Finally, the book is enriched by a lively sequence of photos by the
author, a twenty-years long reportage on the transformation of
Italian and European industrial sites in the eyes of a passionate
photographer.
COMING SOON
2018
U.S.A.
SIA 47th Annual Conference, 31 May-3 June, Richmond,Virginia.
www.sia-web.org
GERMANY
Kernkraftwerk Rheinsberg - Zunkunft eines kulturellen Erbes (about future developments of the decommissioned Rheinsberg nuclear
power station)
14 and 15 June, 2018.
Info and registration: stadtgeschichte.rheinsberg@gmail.com
FRANCE
La Fête du Patrimoine Industriel, 8 July, Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne-Ardenne, Franche-Comte, Rhone-Alpes.
patrimoineindustriel
BELGIUM
6th International Congress on Construction History, 9-13 July, Brussels.
6icch.org
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FRANCE
ICOHTEC 45th Symposium in St Étienne, 17-21 August.
http://icohtec.org/annual-meeting-2018.html
CHILE
XVII TICCIH Congress, the first in Latin America.
13 and 14 September: Congress, Universidad Central de Chile, Santiago.
15 September: Closure and Visit to Sewell World Heritage Site
First registration until 15 June 2018: TICCIH Members US $250, General Public US $300, Students US $80
patrimonioindustrial.cl
IRELAND
World Canals Conference
10-12 September, Athlone.
wccireland2018.com
SPAIN
Resilience, Sustainability and Innovation, XX International Conference on Industrial Heritage, 29 September, LABORAL Ciudad de la
Cultura, Gijón. CfP: 2 July.
Conference Technical Secretariat at incuna@telecable.es.
www.incuna.es
CZECH REPUBLIC
Creators of Industrial Buildings, Research Centre for Industrial Heritage of the Faculty of Architecture, September. Czech Technical
University in Prague.
Symposium to define the international context of industrial heritage buildings in the region.
http://vcpd.cvut.cz/symposium-2018/
PORTUGAL
I Ibero-American Journeys of Young Investigators in Industrial Heritage, 8-10 November, University of Évora
https://jornadasiberoamericanas2018.weebly.com/
2019
POLAND
Big Stuff 2019: Preserving Large Industrial Objects in a Changing Environment
12-13 September, Katowice, Upper Silesia.
Contact Piotr Gerber
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