مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - THE GOLDEN HORN: HERITAGE INDUSTRY VS. INDUSTRIALHERITAGE

Abstract :

The revitalization of former industrial areas has been one of the crucial tasks of urban policyagenda throughout the world since the mid 1970s; whereas heritage industry has become the new orthodoxyin the shift from production to consumption as means for the restructuring and reimaging of post-industrialeconomies in the global order. The increasing tendency to link heritage and conservation with economicdevelopment has brought new meanings to cultural assets, the value of which has started to be related solelyto the economic value it sustains or generates. The commodification and instrumentalization of industrialheritage by the heritage industry, in particular, has turned out to be the determining factor for creatingopportunity spaces in the post-industrial areas. At the same time, many academics are critical on theattempts to reform post-industrial spaces of consumption with privatized spaces and commodified cultures.Within this context, the paper attempts to evaluate the role and the impact of heritage industry in therevitalisation of the post-industrial spaces of Istanbul, with a case study on the Golden Horn. The results ofthe paper are related to the following questions: What role the industrial heritage play in the revitalisationof historic environments? What are the ways to turn such industrial heritage into sources of social andeconomic development? What are the likely impacts on the local economy and local community? Theconclusion gives an overview of the extent of the impacts that industrial heritage has on the Golden Horn,and in turn relates this back to the wider idea of heritage industry being promoted for the urban policymakingin Istanbul.