A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - NÉMETH Györgyi: Monument protection in large industrial establishments

GYÖRGYI NÉMETH MONUMENT PROTECTION IN LARGE INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS THE MEANS AND POSSIBILITIES OF PRESERVING METALLURGICAL COMPLEXES Clarifying the concept of industrial architecture including industrial monuments has not been successful despite several attempts. Although the conference held by the National Monument Protection Office in 1997 focused on this issue, neither the lectures nor the written reports made the concept clear. Therefore we may draw the conclusion that it may be such a complex phenomena, which is difficult to summarise in one short definition. The speakers' viewpoints seem to be acceptable although everybody approached the topic differently. If we try to select the essential approaches from among the different points of view, we have to acknowledge basic differences between the buildings and edifices constructed for industrial activity by asking ourselves whether they were built to serve industrial production during the process of the so-called industrial revolution or they were created before the period of mass utilisation of machinery. Primarily focusing on the period of industrialisation, the definition of industrial architecture seems to be correct, which considers technology, the architectural appearance, its relationship with the environment and the requirements of the settlement. Thus there are differences between: - urban public utilities bearing the features of public buildings and serving as the depot of transport, communications and public facilities and supplemented by lines of public transport under and above ground, - plants in suburbs or at the edge of urban areas providing locations for branches of light industry, electronics and fine mechanics, with main buildings of a public building character organised around workshops, - green field industrial estates locating environment polluting establishments of energy production, iron, steel and silicate industries with buildings of different characters and sizes also surrounding workshops, - monument like edifices inter-settlement transport, communication and energy networks, - technological facilities with additional constructed elements of the chemical industry. The industrial facilities of agriculture are connected to the above, which can be characterised by being separate from built-up areas. However, this classification has not managed to implement its own viewpoints consequently or include the whole stock of industrial architectural objects worth preserving. Thus chemical industry in relation to a settlement has not been defined and mines whose establishment was clearly determined by geographical factors, have been left out. One must also remark that transport does not only have monument like buildings but constructions of a public building character in the forms of stations and warehouses. However, the most important deficiency is that the classification has completely forgotten about colonies or it has not regarded its buildings to belong to the framework of industrial architecture. Therefore, we can draw the conclusion that industry stubbornly resists determining its assets worth preserving by external viewpoints, i.e. an obvious correlation between location, type of building and industrial branch - a natural triad for an architect involved in monument protection. It seems to serve our purpose well if we try to define the circle of edifices worth protection based on the industry's own internal interconnections. By placing technology in focus we can