dk nkf - Nordisk Konservatorforbund Danmark

need tons of cans to fully understand the materialism
of the industrial society.
Preserving the original building “body” of a 19 th
century factory is a very limited story and in general
not a very representative story, as most industrial
buildings have constantly been changed in order
to accommodate new machinery, new sources of
energy and methods of transportation.
So we should try a holistic approach, and an approach
with a direct connection between the conceptual –
curatorial - work and the industrial heritage and the
preservation of objects and listing of buildings. The
approach could very well be traditional and serve
the purpose, but new practices are necessary in
terms of conceptualizing, documenting, preserving
and presenting the industrial heritage.
Finally, having the chance to address you as
conservators directly, I would like to add that the
preservation in general should involve the public.
Many of the mentioned structures – at least when
we are dealing with buildings – are actually best
preserved by people (re-)using them. If they
understand the reasons for preservation – they can
and will take action. This is a method used with much
success by environmental activists dealing with the
natural recourses – so I challenge them: let’s keep
the chimney, the ugly deserted factory, the rubbish
dump and let’s collect hundreds of beer cans - they
tell a story about the industrialized world which is
recognizable to the people actually living in it.
Author
Jacob Berring-Hansen
Curator
The Workers’s Museum
Rømersgade 22
1362 Copenhagen K
Denmark
jbh@arbejdermuseet.dk
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