La gestión territorial del patrimonio industrial en Castilla y León (España): fábricas y paisajes

Abstract

Concern for industrial heritage in Spain is a relatively recent phenomenon. Traditionally, said assets, especially those set in urban environments (isolated buildings, industrial units or full industrial landscapes) faced three main threats. First of all, a fragile social memory associated the factory with often negative vital experiences, such as manual labour, pollution, industrial accidents and death; in other words, the possibility of a resource being recognised for its cultural value depends not only on its objective qualities but also on its social acceptance; urban industrial landscape and architecture have always been viewed as an obstacle to be removed rather than a heritage to be kept (Ortega, 1998).Secondly, the basically utilitarian criterion that characterises this type of architecture hampers the conservation and reuse of industrial architectural heritage because, in contrast to other richer heritages more closely associated with the dominant culture in Western tradition, the factory building has always occupied a marginal place. Finally, industrial architectural heritage faces a major contradiction: although the factory building has hardly any value in itself and its conversion for other uses is particularly costly, the land it stands on is particularly valuable and inversely proportional to the degree of abandonment and the protective commitments it involves.Fortunately, over the last third of the 19th century, some of these threats were overcome and some buildings, including undemolished but abandoned industrial sites, were considered elements of cultural heritage and resources used for urban economy reactivation policies and local development. This renewed interest in industrial heritage has led to the study of Sabero, a region of strong mining-industrial tradition in the province of León, and the two cases analysed in the cities of León and Valladolid (sugar factories and flour mills). However, in both cases the partial nature of the morphological recovery, the radical loss of the original function and the decontextualisation of industrial ruins as a result of the complete renovation of the “environments” detract from the ultimate goal of preserving the factory past of said two cities.Thus, this article is a theoretical reflection on a number of interventions in industrial heritage and strategies for recovery and use, viewed from a geographic perspective. It focuses interest not only on the building but also on territorial variants of the treatment given to the factory (as building), i.e. demolition, partial refurbishment, testimony, completeness, etc., and the surrounding countryside. It is based on the assumption that the presence of an industry in an area of low-level industrialisation, such as the one studied here, has completed a life cycle in which it has changed from vital resource to abandonment and consideration as an obstacle for territorial development (especially urban development) and, finally, to a resource that generates positive economic (tourism) or urban externalities (promoting the residential refurbishment of the area). All these variants of the cycle, as case studies, have already been analysed by the authors in previous research projects; however, there was a need for general theoretical reflection, which is what this article offers. The three examples selected are real-life paradigms of the industrial life cycle and the buildings in which it has developed in Castilla y León (Spain) over several generations.The findings highlight that not only preserved industrial urban areas remains with equity, also the mining areas or small industrial valleys are worthy of being retrieved and applied to new uses or projects that rescued from ruin and revalue remains. Spain have numerous in recovery actions and value of these assets, transformed into tourist resources that contribute to local development culturally, economically and socially. Slowly reorienting the focus on treatment is also observed: we move from a concentration on an isolated element or an object-monument to comprehensive interventions in heritage landscapes that link coherently scattered industrial contractors to create itineraries that explain the industrialization of the territory.