Temporary use and brownfield regeneration in post-socialist context: from bottom-up governance to artists exploitation

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn recent years, both academic and political circles have paid much attention to the use of culture and temporary use in the regeneration of industrial brownfields. Nevertheless, existing records are based, in particular, on examples of cities and regions from long-established free-market European countries. This text uses a case study to provide an analysis and interpretation of the transformation governance of a temporary cultural use into a permanent one with the example of the Hlubina Mine in the traditionally industrial post-socialist city of Ostrava. The findings point to the inconsistency of cultural regeneration outcomes, which mainly stem from the weak public sector role and the unequal power status of all the participants involved. The study also documents the physical and functional discrepancies between temporary and permanent use, and warns of pitfalls resulting from the rapid for-profit exploitative permanent use of the originally organic temporary one.