THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY Regenerating industrial heritage in Rome

Abstract

Former industries are increasingly being reinterpreted for cultural uses despite sometimes having an ambiguous past. The slaughterhouse in Testaccio, Rome, has since its´closing in 1975 been the object of various kinds of plans and uses by number of actors with different interests. Today, The former slaugthterhouse is being transformed into a cultural and creative centre as a part of Rome´s official urban planning. The aim of this study is to analyse and describe the process of a cultural regeneration of the post-industrial place. By identifying the various actors that have used that slaughterhouse, two main groups have been categorised as official and unofficial, based on their clamims and formal resources of power in relation to the site. In order to analyse this process, the discourses created through statements and physical alterations of the material fabric and the situation of the area made by the various actors have been identified and examined. The establishment of a dominant discourse of place by the official actors involves the selection of certain features of the area, while other elements become obscured, in order to create the image of the creative city. Another important aspect of cultural regeneration having been made clearly illustrated througt this study is the significance of unofficial interventions and uses of the industrial place. The unofficial actors have the possibility of developing discursive places outside of the normative views of urban planning.rediscovering the values of forgotten places. Although highly absent from the dominant discourse of the place as present, their previous interventions played an important part in the reinterpretation of place. Furthermore, the study of the various groups and their interaction and relations to the raises further questions on who has the right to transform and inhabit the future city.