Iconic Architecture and Middle-Class Politics of Memory in a Deindustrialized City

Abstract

Deindustrialized cities often struggle with developing a new economic base and place-based identity while also honouring the memory of the industrial past. In this process, local governments have used cultural branding and iconic architecture to present their city as a tourist destination and attractive location for capital investment. Such regeneration strategies have been critiqued as elite projects, divorced from a local sense of place and the everyday realities of residents experiencing ‘industrial ruination’. Yet, this need not always be the case. Focusing on one example of iconic architecture – the spectacular remaking of the railway station of Heerlen, a Dutch former coal-mining town – this article argues that middle-class memories of industrial Heerlen informed both the genesis of this project and its polarized reception by residents. The article demonstrates the linkages between historical and contemporary class divisions, resulting in a complex politics of memory at play within regeneration strategies.