The Impact of Images on the Adaptive Reuse of Post-Industrial Sites

The adaptive reuse of industrial heritage has the potential to create distinctive cityscapes. Based on a comparative study of the regeneration of two former brownfield sites in Norway, we analyse the role industrial heritage plays in the initial planning phases. By using branding and brandscaping as a point of departure, we ask how textual and visual presentations are integrated in the early planning documents as a way to signalise the role assigned to industrial heritage. The method used is referred to as an intertextual plan study and combines two methodological stances: a critical reading of planning documents and case study approach. Key terms such as culture, history, quality and conservation are frequently used in the reports. Although a considerable group of photos and images provide positive associations to evoke atmosphere, the actual number of historical buildings and infrastructures selected for adaptive reuse is limited. In the initial planning phases industrial heritage through text and images functions primarily as a rhetoric means in branding the sites' future character.