Palimpsest industry: Industrial heritage and intangible cultural heritage in the creative city a comparative analysis of the Old Truman Brewery in London and Technopolis in Athens

Abstract

In the face of growing globalisation, maintaining cultural diversity is considered to be important for the long term resilience of cultural heritage (UNESCO, 2003). An intrinsic part of the latter is industrial heritage, which, together with Hillier's (2016) notion of creativity as the city's fourth sustainability, can contribute to building inclusive societies and strengthening the economy. Palimpsest Industry refers to those spatial and social cycles of an industry's (re)use, which are linked with two fundamental heritage values; the tangible, manifested through the built environment and the intangible, expressed through interactions within a durable network of relations. Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) is described as evolving heritage, where tradition and innovation coexist (UNESCO, 2003), while its 'safeguarding' is considered crucial in protecting cultural diversity, due to its centrality to the community (Blake, 2009, Jigyasu, 2015). This paper explores the role of industrial heritage sites and their integration in urban development, through the study of configurational, morphological and perceptual characteristics. For this reason, two industrial heritage schemes are investigated; the Old Truman Brewery in London, UK and Technopolis in Athens, Greece. The study examines those factors present in the urban environment and the syntactic form of each scheme that affect the density of interactions and people's perceptions of heritage constitution. Along with Space Syntax, on site observations and morphological analysis, mental mapping combined with VGA is also implemented as a tool to bring forth those attributes which constitute living expressions of each site's legacy. The findings demonstrate that the studied cases variation is identified to be linked with their spatial configuration and management, but more importantly with their local to global spatial relations in facilitating 'contacts of the right kind' (Hillier, 2016) through diffused social networks. It is suggested that enabling socio-spatial diversity and maintaining a life cycle of events are essential for the 'safeguarding' of ICH, since together they generate a self-reinforcing process (Gehl, 2011). Finally, this paper highlights the fine balance between conservation of industrial heritage and management of change in facilitating intercultural dialogue, promoting creativity and placing heritage in the heart of community development.