New Side of Upper Silesia in Light of Revitalisation Processes

Abstract

Post-industrial facility restructuring processes redefining the functionality of urban and old industrial space, have taken place in Western Europe since the 1960s and constitute one of the most significant economic phenomena nowadays. In our country, the results are most vivid in Upper Silesia and the industrial city of Łódź. Upper Silesia, the most considerable concentration of mining, steel, engineering and chemical industries, has been restructuring and innovating its industries for nearly 30 years. It is connected with closing of the old post-industrial facilities which become subject to revitalisation and, frequently, are given new socio-economic functions. Other devastated and damaged facilities and spaces are also subject to such processes - former historical and architectural values are restored for them. In this paper, the emphasis is put on a diagnosis of the various types of post-industrial and other Upper Silesian facilities subject to revitalisation. Moreover, possible directions of development and adaptation to new functions have been indicated. Examples of various revitalisation results have been mentioned for such GOP (Upper-Silesian Industrial Region) facilities as: coal mines, steel-works, factories, engineering plants, as well as post-industrial waste-ground. The paper also identifies the most significant output of the already completed projects which results in the change of the functional structure of Upper Silesia and creates its new socio-economic image. One of the directions of this industrial region’s transformation is tourism which makes Upper Silesia an area of a unique and most powerful concentration of facilities demonstrating the former industrial, cultural and civilisational traditions - unexampled on the national or European scale.