Between formality and informality: the role of partnerships to co-create cultural value of industrial heritage

Analyzing the cultural value of industrial artefacts is particularly challenging due to lack of recognition as heritage assets and misconceptions related to previous uses and feeling of unwanted heritage. Former industrial sites are in many cases object of urban transformation and regeneration projects focusing on the re-purposing of the building while producing limited societal impact. Commoning – recalling the notions of the commons – offers a valuable way to counteract commodification of industrial heritage and to enable local participation for the preservation and valorization of industrial heritage. Commoning leverages on latent resources, local identities and mutuality to stimulate co-creation of re-use interventions capable of adding a cultural value to industrial artefacts, shifting the paradigm of conservation from artefacts to the value they represent for the participants in the process. In this light, the paper aims to explore how commoning can support the attribution of social and cultural values to former industrial sites. In our research, based on a case study, we explore how formal and informal collaboration and self-management arrangements can enhance the use value of former industrial artefacts contributing to the co-creation of social and cultural values, recognized by a community of interest. In doing so, we increase knowledge about how commoning can engage communities in collaborative heritage-making processes on industrial heritage. Furthermore, we provide new insights about the typology of values that different stakeholders place on industrial artefacts, shedding lights on participatory practices as tools to increase recognition of cultural values by communities.