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Almost all of the cities in the developed world, even precious historic sites such as Venice, underwent drastic transformations after the introduction of industrial machinery. Train yards, factories, warehouses, mobile cranes, and working class tenements, were reproduced everywhere, radically subverting the cohesion of traditional urban fabric. Aside from this generally negative impact on urban form, during the current age of Climate Change, one tends to chastise industrial civilization for its dominant role in the excessive buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Paul Crutzen and many other authoritative proponents of the theory of the Anthropocene mark the origin of this new geological period at 1784 with the introduction of James Watt¡¯s steam engine. That the Industrial Revolution generated an unmatched creation of wealth, while producing unmitigated environmental and social calamities, goes without saying, but what critics often overlook is the profound architectural and urban impact of industry. ... ... While artists during the 20th century had frequently adapted to industrial spaces for their needs, the general cultural attention to the legacy of industrial architecture began in the 1950s in the UK, the home of the industrial revolution. The concept of ¡°Industrial archaeology¡± was popularized by Kenneth Hudson in his 1963 text Industrial Archaeology: an Introduction, which was followed by the foundation, first in the US and then in Britain, of various associations for the preservation of industrial structures as historic patrimony. The first acknowledgement occurred in 1934 with the recognition of the Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale built in 1777 as a national monument. In 1978 this site became the locus of the first international convention on industrial monuments. During the same year the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts figure 2, began to be converted into a National Historic Park as museums of industry. Currently UNESCO¡¯s world heritage list includes nearly 100 industrial sites (mostly in the US, UK and Canada). The heritage factor often confounds the question of what to do with unused industrial buildings and their territories, whether to treat them as immutable artifacts of historic value or as a fresh palette for creative additions. ... ... written by Richard Ingersoll
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