Purpose – The purpose of this papter is to examine the role heritage considerations have played in the transformation of industrial areas in three Norwegian cities, Oslo, Drammen and Larvik. The location, scale and rough appearance of industrial sites stemming from the industrial era makes these places locations for new cultural and other recreational activities made possible through architectonic interventions. Design/methodology/approach – A comparative case study based on examinations of a series of plans, site investigations and interviews with planners, developers, architects and heritage managers. Findings – The study has revealed that private-public partnerships today prevail parts of Norwegian planning. The role and strength of the state, the municipality, the private developers and the heritage management as partners varies, however. While the state as well as the heritage management played an essential role in all stages in the development process in Oslo, the private developers and the public planners were the main instigators both in Drammen and Larvik, where the heritage managers played a subsidiary role. Although largely transformed, selected parts of the old industrial heritage sites have been taken care of as a result, and new architectural contexts have arisen. Originality/value – While actual planning processes have been led by private investors and real estate developers, the case study has shown that participation from the public sector via funding is vital to ensure long-term solutions. The results can be of service in similar cases where large industrial plants are left empty while slowly disintegrating.

No abstract

Contemporary Oslo has an annual population growth of circa 2% and viewed in a Norwegian perspective, it is growing faster than any other city. In this article we investigate whether social and cultural sustainability are taken in to account in the densification policy and practices taking place here. We start with an overview of research on socio-cultural sustainability and in particular how it has been addressed in the Norwegian context. After setting a theoretical and conceptual framework we investigate densification and social and cultural sustainability at different scales. Our analysis focuses on the policy level. We conduct a text analysis of the new municipal plan. Then, to provide a bottom-up perspective, we zoom in on one of the suburban areas, pointed out in the plan as a densification site. We combine survey with a mapping of the area and a description of its historical development to get an understanding of what the densification that has already taken place there, means for the residents. Our findings indicate that social and cultural resources are place specific. Additionally, what residents consider as resources valuable of being handed over for future generations is not always the same as what experts identify as worth preserving.

Rikke Stenbro is a Danish art historian based in Oslo. As a heritage researcher and urbanist her work is both theory and praxis focused on the way in which architectural interventions address the temporal texture of urban sites and situations. For the last few years she has been increasingly interested in the built fabric of the recent past and in addressing architectural preservation from a large-scale perspective. Suburban and urban landscapes, mass housing, infrastructural systems and the coexistence and interrelatedness between them are thus central points of interest in her research and in the various planning and development projects she has been involved in as a consultant. While writing this article Stenbro held a position as senior researcher at NIKU (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research) she has since then taken up a position as senior advisor within urbanism and cultural heritage at Rambøll, Norway. rikke.stenbro@ramboll.no Svava Riesto is a Norwegian art historian based in Copenhagen. Her research is concerned with how different values and cultural ideas influence the way that the city is understood -and how it is changed. She s is interested in a broad range of practices where people change the urban landscape, such as design, planning, heritage management, legislation and vernacular practices. Svava Riesto's work encompasses both examination of existing discourses/practices and proposals for alternative readings/prospects. Her current research examines how large-scale modern housing areas are understood and transformed in contemporary preservation-and urban renewal projects. Svava Riesto is postdoc research fellow at the Dept. of Landscape architecture and planning, the University of Copenhagen. For the last 10 years she has also been advising private and public partners in projects about urban design, urban renewal and urban transformation.

– møde mellem fortidig form og fremtidig anvendelse. Den arkitektoniske kulturarvs forandringsprocesser i det museologiserede samfund – gamle og nye parametre for ‘heritage production’.