Zprávy památkové péče 2017, 77(5):491-504

Reflections on the industrial landscapes of the Czech Republic

Věra Kučová¹, Karel Kuča

¹ NPÚ, GnŘ

Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, rightfully considered the raw material and industrial hearts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, were significantly affected by the development of industry in the 19th and 20th centuries (as well as by mining since the Middle Ages). The degree of change in different areas was naturally different. The prerequisite for an area to have been considered an industrial landscape (and not just a land affected by industry) was a marked transformation of the overall appearance and the old structure of the landscape by industrial activity, as well as a sufficient area and degree of concentration of industrial units. The most prominent industrial landscapes, especially associated with underground or surface coal mining and its associated development of heavy industry, are in fact a separate category of cultural landscapes, provided that the term "cultural" is understood as any kind of transformation of the landscape by man. The main difference in comparison to an organically developed cultural landscape, for example, is that an industrial landscape was not created with the perspective of the long-term sustainability of such an arrangement, but rather focused primarily on the exploitation of natural resources and the narrow economic aspects of industrial production. This is actually in contrast to other types of cultural landscapes, since to develop it further means to eliminate its older form. In essence, industrial landscapes are also encoded by a characterization of self-destruction: after the raw materials have been depleted, the mining areas are then abandoned and reclaimed (and thus completely changed) in order to be used for other purposes. The lack of raw materials also has a natural impact on the associated areas of heavy industry. In addition, these are characterized by a constant need for modernization and the replacement of obsolete operations with more modern ones. Their further existence is conditioned by the economic profitability of the operation. In particular, the fundamental structural and social changes after 1989 have caused, together with the effects of globalization of the economy, the extinction or significant decline of many industrial sectors in our country. The article shows that heritage care has only very little objective possibilities to stop the natural and lawful process of such extinction and other transformations in industrial landscapes. It can scarcely attempt to do more than to preserve the characteristic and most valuable evidence of the development of industry and of segments of the landscape. This requires that the constant and continuous documentation of the form and transformation of the industrial landscape play even more of a major role.

Keywords: industrial landscape, industrial heritage, cultural landscape, heritage care

Published: December 1, 2017  Show citation