Practicing a post-industrial place : introduction

Abstract

"The project of the National Programme of the Development of Humanities: “Development” 2.b entitled Post-industrial Places as the Subject of Transdisciplinary Studies. From Design to Rootedness stems from the need to both develop a transdisciplinary research path and to show how a post-industrial place is practised in culture. And it is the sphere of praxis which is the subject of this volume. A view combining perspectives of culture theoreticians and practitioners as well as designers is crucial in the study of phenomena related to post-industrial heritage. For the humanities it is important to capture the moment of transition from design issues to cultural reflection upon designed places/things/ concepts. The retreat from industrial production as “manufacturing things” to producing and processing the ideas is marked with a trail of technological transformation and the emerging service industry. A departure from the planned and mass towards the individual, at least potentially, opens us towards design practices which transform what is unrooted, abandoned, ancient, degraded. Analyses of cities, design, economics, social environment open to research domestication of the explosion of design in the inherited post-industrial space. A place, no matter how overexerted today, is still a challenge in humanistic thought." (fragm.)