Bulletin 44:Butlletí 35 20/4/09 09:40 Página 1 I recently returned from two week’s travel in India, conducted independently and as member of the Board of TICCIH Sweden. It resulted in a number of contacts and initiatives that I would like to explain. I believe the Opinion time is ripe for a collected effort to deepen and extend TICCIH’s contacts with Asia. This is especially urgent since the long-expected TICCIH conference in China had to be cancelled. In the spring of 2006, Divay Gupta, our representative in India who works at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), proposed an Dr Jan af Geijerstam www.mnactec.com/ticcih intermediate TICCIH conference in his country, but nothing came of it. That proposal still stands, though as an NGO, INTACH’s economic resources are limited. I am quite convinced that an excellent conference can The need for be carried out in India. TICCIH to act in Two prime candidates are firstly Mumbai, which has a rich industrial heritage with several areas of Asia international importance including the textile mills and the port, today under extreme threat from change, and secondly the former Union Carbide factory site in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. In both cities there are active local actors and scholars engaged in preserving and developing former industrial sites, and are easily accessible by air. The conference could combine a workshop in Bhopal with a more general program in Mumbai. The opportunities – and challenges – in the area of industrial archaeology and heritage in Asia are immense. In the rapid growth of cities, heritage in general is subjected to irreversible damage, and so is industrial heritage. This is a joint concern for all us. The roots of industrial heritage in Asia have global connections on a political, economic, cultural and social level in all periods of time, but especially in Toronto Union Station, Canada, c.1930. East end pre-independence or colonial times. of train shed with Royal York Hotel in background. One possibility that should be considered is for collaboration with the Modern Asia Architecture Source: Archives of Ontario Network (mAAN). The organizational structure, agenda, and action plan of mAAN were adopted at its first international conference in Macau, 2001. Yearly conferences have been arranged since [http://www.m-aan.org]. Reviewing the results of previous mAAN workshops, not least the one in Shanghai in 2003, it is evident that mAAN has valuable experience in arranging this kind of work. One step in creating ties between TICCIH and mAAN could be to join forces for an intermediary TICCIH conference in India in 2010. Another great opportunity will be the 2011 mAAN conference in Seoul, to be dedicated to industrial heritage. Finally I would like to add to the call for TICCIH to contribute to the preservation of the former Union Carbide factory site in Bhopal.1 The disaster in 1984 shocked the world. Today the site of that disaster ought to be preserved. This calls for international attention. There are few industrial number 44 heritage sites anywhere which embody such wide and extensive immaterial values. Spring, 2009 In 2005 the State of Madhya Pradesh proposed to redevelop the factory land as a memorial, but the administration has lately threatened to pull it down. The Union Carbide works has recently been nominated to the 2010 World Monuments Watch List of the 100 most endangered cultural Inside: heritage sites. Having visited the factory in Bhopal in February and inspected the structures and the site and Bridges of iron discussed it with several of the involved parties I would like to strongly endorse preservation of the structures. This will involve a thorough on-site mapping and safeguarding of external archival material, and other tangible and intangible material relating to the site. Preservation and future use call for international cooperation and assistance in the practical fields of industrial This bulletin is archaeology, conservation and heritage studies. Expertise is needed to evaluate, document, produced and analyse, critique, clean, conserve, communicate, market and support this cause. It should be possible to have plans for both an Indian workshop/intermediary conference and the distributed with Seoul conference ready in advance of the XIV TICCIH Congress in Freiberg. Both initiatives would the support of the project TICCIH into a new territory and fill it with a new purpose. I would be pleased to help set mNACTEC up a working group as a first step. 1. See TICCIH Bulletin #43, Winter 2008, or ‘Bhopal disaster’ on Wikipedia [email protected] Skype: janafgeijerstam Bulletin 44:Butlletí 35 20/4/09 09:40 Página 2 TICCIHnews TICCIH elections conference tours, draft timetable and so on. these thematic divisions with typological The TICCIH General Assembly is held every The 'Third Announcement' with the full criteria: architecture, civil engineering and three years, and this year will be on the last day conference programme was sent out in early landscape. of the Freiberg Congress, Saturday, 5 April, and can be downloaded from the To set the project in motion, the database will September, at 2.00 pm. conference web site. be primed with the 80 TICCIH sites chosen in This is the occasion for the elections to choose 1994. To these we can add other who will be on the TICCIH Board for the next internationally-recognized industrial heritage three years as well as the new president and TICCIH on-line inventory of monuments: the fifty or so already treasurer. The following five Board members world industrial heritage acknowledged by UNESCO; sites mentioned in There have been discussions in TICCIH over are due to retire by rotation, though they can the TICCIH/ICOMOS thematic studies; sites the years around the issues of identifying the offer themselves for re-election: Maria Teresa from the Dinosaurs of Industry project of a few most important historic industrial places in the Maiullari Pontois, Patrick Martin, Gyorgyi years ago, and so on. A researcher at the world. Already TICCIH gives advice to UNESCO Nemeth, Miles Oglethorpe and David Worth. MNACTEC will continue adding sites until the - through its partnership with ICOMOS - to help There may be more vacancies, too, as not all decide which industrial sites, nominated by database has achieved a critical mass of sites, the Board members have confirmed with the their countries, should be included on the from which point it is hoped that it will take off Secretary if they want to continue or not. World Heritage List. To sustain this advice into self-sustained growth. The Internet Who can stand and who can vote? TICCIH encourages thematic studies of which address of the database will be published Any fully paid-up member of TICCIH is eligible there are so far five, which consider how to shortly. Meanwhile, suggestions to improve the to stand for election. Nominations need to be evaluate coal mines, company towns, canals, project will be most welcome supported by two members of TICCIH. If you bridges and railways. And the origin of these ([email protected]) as well as any other lists or are not sure whether you have paid for 2009, studies was a list prepared by TICCIH as long compilations of important sites that the project check the on-line Directory of Members on the ago as 1994 of the eighty best industrial team could include. index page of the TICCIH web site, which is heritage sites in the world. automatically updated when you either join or A new project to create a TICCIH inventory renew your membership. aims to advance knowledge of the global state New TICCIH representatives in Only paid-up National Representatives are of industrial heritage. It is an initiative of the Africa entitled to vote at the General Assembly. For out-going TICCIH president Eusebi Casanelles Two new correspondents will extend the reach any doubts concerning the elections, either who wants to develop the searchable, of TICCIH into North Africa. In Egypt, Dr Yasser read the TICCIH Statutes, sections E to I structured database of historic sites that has Aref is an associate professor in the (www.mnactec.cat/ticcih/ticcih_statutes.htm) been built for the Museu de la Ciència i de la Department of Architecture at Menofeya or write to the Secretary, Stuart B Smith Tècnica de Catalunya (MNACTEC), in Spain. University and head of the Architecture Unit at ([email protected]) The TICCIH database will adapt the criteria for the Alexandria and Mediterranean Research selection and the information on each site, and Center in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina: recycle the digital architecture of the database. www.yasseraref.com. Our new contact in Congress news One innovation will be to make the project The Freiberg conference is only four months participative by including an on-line form Morocco is Professor Wartiti, a mining expert in away and from of the number of registrations it which anyone can complete, to send in details the Mohammed V University since 1978 looks as if it will be a great success. The of a site which they think ought to be included. ([email protected]). Her project can be seen at conference organisers are urging you to sort Once they have been suitably edited and http://clik.to/geolaprabat/ out your accommodation as soon as possible verified, new sites will go straight into the list. as this will be under great pressure. Details of The plan is to divide the list up into twelve the four conference hotels can be found on the industrial sectors, to help search for sites. Nine Thanks to all the contributors congress website or in the Second Call booklet, of them are familiar classifications used for Photographs are by the authors unless stated along with details of how to reach Freiberg, industrial heritage, while three more cross-cut otherwise.