REUSE OF INDUSTRIAL BUILT HERITAGE FOR RESIDENTIAL PURPOSES IN MANCHESTER

Abstract

In recent years, the reuse of built industrial heritage has been a common practice in a growing number of cities in Britain as well as other cities around the world. This has become particularly noticeable in terms of recent and ongoing urban regeneration schemes. The gradual acknowledgment that 'culture can play a catalytic role in urban regeneration' has changed the perception towards industrial built heritage. As a result of the increasing competition between cities at the global scale, cities try to highlight their unique characteristics and establish a specific place identity to attract investment, tourists and residents. Heritage is widely used to construct and promote distinctive representations of a place. Culture (a big part of it is heritage) has been promoted as a major tool for 'the production of more variegated spaces within the increasing homogeneity of international exchange' (Harvey, 1991). Furthermore, there is also an increasing awareness that tourism has significant potential as a driver for economic growth. Therefore heritage has become a major resource for international tourism by providing visitors with authentic cultural experiences. In consequence, built industrial heritage has become a valuable asset to be used to regenerate declining urban areas and promote a more desirable place image. Since historic buildings contribute immensely to the attractiveness, distinctiveness and identity of places. In addition to that while moving towards a more sustainable society, demolition of these culturally and historically significant buildings is now hard to be justified more than ever. Current urban polices strongly support the concept of preserving and reusing these buildings and their surroundings to create more sustainable, high quality, mixed use, high-density and historic neighbourhoods in a more continental style in contrast to the Anglo-American city model. Therefore reusing existing urban fabric and brownfield sites in preference to green ones has been the central focus of urban development in Britain since 1990s. These typically simple-form, multi-storey and well lit buildings which are 'built to last' (Binney et al., 1990) and their surroundings provide an ideal ground for their reuse. In addition to their physical and material properties they also represent strong social and cultural values as the concept of intangible heritage is deeply connected with memory and identity of a place and its people. Graham et al. (2000) explains the social benefits of heritage referring Lowenthal's four traits of the past in his 1985 work, The Past is a Foreign Country. These traits are antiquity; the connection of the present to the past; a sense of termination; and the idea of a sequence. They claim that heritage provides meaning to human existing by conveying the ideas of timeless values and unbroken lineages that underpin identity (Graham et al., 2000). In this context, like other heritage materials, old industrial buildings provide people with a sense of belonging and also define the character of a community by providing a strong link with the past, present and future. In many old industrial cities in Britain, these buildings, the biggest and most visible symbols of the great industrial past, actually serve as monuments of social and cultural identities. There is also a strong tie between identity and memory. Hayden (1997) identifies the link between identity and memory; both personnel memories and the collective and social memories. She claims that urban landscapes storehouses for these social memories because they frame the lives of many people and outlast many lifetime (Hayden, 1997). As Ashworth and Graham (2005) remind us place identity is a social construct and something attributed to a place by people and largely based on the past. Industrial buildings, symbolic reminders of Britain's great industrial past act as a repository for collective memories of many ordinary people and factory workers because of the way they have been an everyday surrounding for their users. Therefore, reusing and preserving these buildings prevent the destruction of these social memories of a community. However as Atkinson et al. (2002) argue there is potential for conflict between the roles of urban landscapes as a resource for social meanings and the needs of place-promoters to remake and re-image the city. The use of heritage in cultural led urban developments through city marketing campaigns and tourism industry gives way to the process of commodification of the past. This is because of the nature of 'heritage being a both cultural and economic good and being commodified as such'(Graham et al., 2000). This process can result in a loss of authenticity and historical significance of the cultural resource as well as trivialising the intangible aspects of a heritage property. Many industrial cities now experience the same kind of reuse schemes converting former industrial buildings into places of living, leisure and consumption. This usually results in changing the preexisting character of these cities and transforming these old urban landscapes of production into new landscapes of consumption (Atkinson et al. 2002, Bianchini and Schwengel 1991, Hubbard 1996, O'Connor and Wynne 1996). In the process of conservation and reuse of industrial built heritage, another issue which proves contentious is the phenomenon of gentrification. Since, the historical and aesthetic qualities old industrial buildings such as mills and warehouses and their closeness to city centre attractions draw people to live and work in these buildings. These new residents (often affluent, professional and young) and their housing preferences, lifestyle and consumer choices pave the way for gentrification. Because of the nature of residential use being a highly private use comparing to other reuse schemes such as museums, art galleries and cafes, there is a greater potential that these schemes may cause gentrification, inequal