Issue 1(61)/2020

DOI: 10.5277/ARCHITECTUS

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Articles

Marie Grima - The Tod Head lighthouse lantern. The conservation-restoration of a technical object that has been continuously modified over the years

doi:10.37190/arc200102

This paper presents the conservation and reassembly of the Tod Head lighthouse lantern in the storage area of the National Museums Scotland. The Tod Head lighthouse was located on the Scottish east coast, north of Edinburgh. The lantern was dismantled in 2011 and sent to the National Museums Collection Centre. Firstly we look at a technical explanation of a functioning lighthouse. The lighting device – which is called a lantern – uses Fresnel lenses, also called stepped lenses. The design of the lantern was a collaboration between the Scottish engineer David Alan Stevenson and the horologist Augustin Henry-Lepaute, partner of Augustin Fresnel. Secondly, a short history of the object is presented. Throughout the 20th century, the lantern has undergone many changes. The light has been electrified and the mechanism has been motorised. Finally we detail the conservation operations and the reassembly.

Keywords:

    lantern

    lighthouse

    stevenson

    fresnel

Graça Filipe - The safeguarding of the Vale de Milhaços Gunpowder Factory and the operational conservation of the steam generator and the steam engine

doi:10.37190/arc200103

The subject of the article is the black powder factory in Vale de Milhaços in Portugal as an example of the protection of post-industrial heritage. Shown the process of transforming an active production facility into a museum. The steam powered production of black gunpowder in Vale de Milhaços began in 1896 using an innovative system for transmitting mechanical energy over distance by interconnecting the central power generation building with transmission houses for eight sets of production workshops. Steam powered production continued through to 2001 when the Black Gunpowder Circuit became an extension of the Seixal Municipal Ecomuseum under the management of the Seixal Municipality. This aimed to guarantee the preservation of the heritage, including the buildings, production machinery, equipment and utensils. Importantly the heritage was conserved in situ with operational steam-powered energy production, using expertise from past workers at the factory. This required multiple technical, administrative and heritage management procedures including heritage classification; registering of the pressurised industrial equipment; renewal of the licenses for such equipment with the respective economic and industrial public authorities (despite being industrially deactivated); contracting operators for their appropriate conservation within a museological context; and eliminating all black powder from the buildings and surrounding areas. Partnerships with universities and researchers were also developed, including the current project IH4Future – Material Culture, Scientific Culture: industrial heritage for the future under which researchers from historical, museological, material and conservation sciences are undertaking the material characterisation of the heritage on the site using multiple analytical techniques. These studies will provide knowledge on the industry history and technological development of the Vale de Milhaços Gunpowder Factory that will assist in its conservation and development as a museum.

Keywords:

    vale-de-milhaços-gunpowder-factory

    industrial-heritage

    steam-generation

    steam-engine

    operational-conservation

Ellie Swinbank - Collecting and displaying the decommissioning of North Sea Oil and Gas at the National Museums Scotland

doi:10.37190/arc200104

This article discusses objects relating to the extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea and now held in the collection of National Museums Scotland. Oil and gas extraction and processing has been a key industry in Scotland in recent decades, important to the economy and also to the debate about Scotland’s independence. The industry is now approaching an end and it is expected that, by 2040, around 470 installations will have been closed and dismantled. In this context, the issue of preservation becomes extremely important. National Museums Scotland has been collecting and display these objects for some time. The acquisiton in 2017 of the Murchison oil platform flare tip was a key achievement and also probably the biggest challenge for staff in this area to date. Weighing nearly a ton and standing 4 metres tall, the flare tip is not only a symbol of industry but of human history, and accompanying audiovisual documentation, oral history, images and report book entries add depth to this and increase display potential. The flare tip is also a starting point for discussion about contemporary collecting and the future of energy collections in Scotland. The article discusses the significance of this object and the work relating to its preservation and display.

Keywords:

    oil

    decommissioning

    industry

    museum

    collection

    scotland

Neil Meyers - The protection of industrial movable cultural heritage and the role of volunteer organisations in Australia

doi:10.37190/arc200105

This article focuses on issues related to the current legal situation of historic machinery and vehicles in Australia as well as the competencies, skills and commitment of persons (both professionals and amateurs, or volunteers) dealing with their protection. Australia’s listed industrial heritage is generally limited to industrial buildings, as most often production equipment has been scrapped or relocated. The author discusses the need for legislative reform to enable the listing and protection of historic machines in a similar way to the listing and protection of historic buildings, based on an assessment of their value and relationships with local communities. He also discusses the need for volunteer organizations dealing with big stuff to re-examine what they need to do to attract professionals (diversified in terms of profession, age, interests, etc.) and work with protection funding bodies to create funding structures that support multi-year industrial heritage preservation projects.

Keywords:

    australia

    industrial-heritage

    movable-cultural-heritage

    volunteer-organisations

    machinery-restoration

Pieter Neirinckx, Marc Pinte - Urban development in Ghent offers new opportunities for industrial heritage and the museum

doi:10.37190/arc200106

The subject of the article is the process of establishing, and the role of an industrial museum in the former port areas of Ghent. Although Ghent is located about 32 km from the coast, the city is a real sea port. The construction of the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal in 1823–1827 created a direct corridor to the North Sea. From the 19th century, large textile factories began to arise in and around the medieval city center, so that at the end of the 2nd half of the 19th century, Ghent became the most important industrial city of Flanders. This continued until the 1970 crisis. At that time, textile production was moved to countries with lower labor costs and factory buildings were demolished, but the old port basins remained. Port activities were moved north of the city to areas along the canal. The first Museum for Industrial Archaelogy was founded in this area. Fearful of potential loss of important industrial heritage, the small museum took over large steam engines and even port cranes. It gradually became understood that the collection of these large industrial objects in museum conditions is not easy. The Department for Urban Planning began the re-evaluation of the 19th-century industrial belt and the area of the old port. Currently, there is the integration of large technology objects (big stuff) with urban tissue and social life. The port’s heritage is raised to act as a visual and identity carrier, with a particular focus on port cranes. The cooperation between the Department of Urban Planning and the Museum of Industry offers the Museum the opportunity to go outside the walls of the museum to restore big industrial facilities (big stuff) to the old port of the city.

Keywords:

    urban-redevelopment

    industrial-heritage

    movable-cultural-heritage

    heritage-conservation

Mateusz Grabowski, Bartosz M. Walczak - Old power stations as industrial heritage and adaptive re-use challenges

doi:10.37190/arc200107

The aim of the study is to present issues in the adaptation process of post-industrial buildings related to city infrastructure, and their dependencies on urban planning structures. In the article, the authors show that technology was one of the main determinants of cities’ spatial solutions and building construction in the periods analyzed. These issues are closely related to current processes of adaptation and conservation of post-industrial heritage facilities. The study is based on comparison of 19th and 20th century industrial complexes located in Poland, and industrial buildings, showing great similarities in their technical structures and ways of functioning. Important aspects of the analysis were historical factors (territorial turmoil and political changes in our country in the 19th and 20th century), and relations with urban planning and the current functioning of the cities’ facilities. Study is based on references to contemporary and historical phenomena affecting Karol Scheibler’s power plant in Łódź, Saturn power plant in Czeladź, the power plant in Powiśle in Warsaw, power plants EC1 and EC2 in Łódź and power plant Szombierki in Bytom. It shows factors influencing their current adaptation, architectural solutions in the conservation process and preservation of post-industrial heritage.

Keywords:

    industrial-heritage

    adaptive-re-use

    power-station

Aleksandra Kozaczek, Gabriela Wojciechowska, Maria Czarnecka, Agnieszka Nowicka - Reconstruction and possibilities for adaptive re-use of railway stations based on the example of selected objects from the area of Lower Silesia – results of analyses carried out during student workshops

doi:10.37190/arc200108

In Lower Silesia, during the period of dynamic development of the railway industry in the 19th century, numerous objects related to railway infrastructure were created. At that time, some unique architectural and engineering objects were built. This article discusses selected buildings related to the railways in Lower Silesia that have significant architectural, historical, cultural and landscape values, but which have deteriorated and fallen into disrepair as a result of not being used. The authors’ intention was also to show potential sources of inspiration for the revitalization of the described cases – examples of railway station adaptation to new functions. The article presents reconstructions of selected stations in the form of architectural models. Three objects representing various functional and spatial solutions were discussed in detail: Marchijski Railway Station in Wrocław, the station in Jaworzyna Śląska, and the station in Żelazno. Reconstruction mockups of the facilities were made using archival building documentation, engravings and photographs, data from the Register of Monuments and scientific studies to research their original appearance and provide information on the changes that occurred over time to each facility and its functioning. An important aim k of the publication is to show selected railway facilities in the era of their splendor and to contrast this with their current state.

Keywords:

    railway-stations

    lower-silesia

    model

Piotr Gerber - Comments on the protection of historic industrial facilities, experience in Silesia

doi:10.37190/arc200109

The protection and preservation of industrial heritage is an important social task. The process of preserving technical monuments requires knowledge and experience in various fields covering the specificity of the protected monument.     This article presents the criteria used to assess the value of a technical monument. Based on the research, approaches to the protection and re-use of historic industrial facilities were systematized. The way of proceeding when making decisions on adapting technical monuments to new functions was discussed. The solutions discussed are illustrated by examples of projects for the protection and use of large historic industrial facilities implemented by the Foundation for the Protection of Industrial Heritage of Silesia.

Keywords:

    protection-of-monuments

    protection-of-industrial-heritage

    history-of-technology

    lower-silesia

Agnieszka Gryglewska - Between tenement buildings and blocks of flats. Architecture of buildings of civil servants’ housing cooperatives in Wrocław at the beginning of the 20th century

doi:10.37190/arc200110

The subject of the article is the architecture of the houses of the Housing Association of Civil Servants (Beamten-Wohnungsverein zu Breslau eGmbH) and the Housing Association of Municipal Civil Servants and Teachers (Wohnungsverein städtischer Beamten und Lehrer zu Breslau eGmbH) – the oldest and biggest cooperatives in Wrocław before World War I, the purpose of which was the construction of healthy, solid and modernly equipped apartments with rents competitive for commercial construction. Examination of the preserved archival documentation made it possible to identify the legal conditions of their establishment and investment activities such as land selection and purchase, project financing, project implementation, their authorship and organization of construction. The study discusses the architecture of eight complexes of cooperative buildings along with their surroundings, intimate gardens and playgrounds in the courtyards. The houses built in traditional perimeter development stood out from the neighbouring tenement houses by the simplicity of their shape and façade decorations. Already at that time a tendency to unify the plan and façade of long buildings with several staircases could be seen, which led to the creation of the first houses of the “residential blocks” type. The article analyzes the way apartments were shaped, their layout, functional division, size, technical facilities and common economic facilities, which met the requirements of cooperatives and modern reform tendencies, which would find their continuation in housing construction in the times of the Weimar Republic.

Keywords:

    housing-cooperatives

    architecture-of-around-1900

    wrocław

    germany

Jakub Lewicki - Preservation of historical monuments in Mazovia in the face of new challenges and changes in conservation theory

doi:10.37190/arc200111

This paper presents conservation activities in Mazovia. It describes the work carried out in the most important groups of monuments including timber, military and railway architecture and medieval and modernist architecture. It presents the activities undertaken to protect and popularise medieval and modern architecture, and the work conducted to determine the heritage and work out the principles for protecting the modernist architecture. It was pointed out that, despite the legally imposed restrictions, the Voivodeship Heritage Conservator can be an active participant in the monument protection system, as well as the executor of the state policy regarding national heritage. This person can also effectively combine sustainable development with conservation protection and adapt these to changing needs.

Keywords:

    historical-monuments

    mazovia

    voivodeship-heritage-protection-office

    warsaw