Description:
For a century and a half, the North American landscape was marked by evidence of tremendous industrial activity, by artifacts such as railroad bridges, factories, grain silos, and hydroelectric dams. In the transformation to an information economy, that evidence increasingly takes the form of detritus, of rusting scrap and decaying structures. Writes French economic historian Louis Bergeron, "the line is quickly crossed between the living industrial landscape and the industrial wasteland, dramatic in its immobility, its abandonment, and its gradual degradation." This sprawling and striking photographic essay, depicting railroad stations, shipyards, canals, steel mills, and other industrial centers, offers a catalog of all that is now giving way to commercial parks and residential subdivisions. Although Bergeron recognizes that the times change--and, indeed, that this industrial landscape is the result of many incremental additions and subtractions over the years--he urges that some of our industrial landscapes be preserved as museums and "heritage corridors." He adds that many other industrial structures lend themselves to "adaptive reuse," in which hotels, restaurants, and galleries might occupy former industrial space. Citing successful examples of this preservation, he remarks that the American public "is developing an attachment to and fondness toward industrial monuments and landscapes, whose significant contributions are beginning to be better understood and appreciated." As an exercise in that understanding and appreciation, this book has much merit--and it's a pleasure to browse through as well. --Gregory McNamee
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