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Industrial
archaelogy
Industrial
archaeology is nothing but the archaeology of the social capitalism.
According
to the researches carried out in the Adriatic Area, the place seem not to
have a rooted industrial tradition (at least abiding by the Romano
definition). After all, the period in which Italy developed its industries
is the one that goes from 1861 (Italian Unity) to the end of World War Two.
It is much later respect to the industrial revolutions that took place in
Europe throughout the two centuries before. Reports dating back to the
years just after 1861 talking of Marche in particular, show a reality of a
heavily populated county lacking ,though, of large urban centre and even
fertility of the ground.
The economy was essentially based on farming. The
wheat, sweet-corn and wine produced was just enough for the population to
survive. It was a closed system. This is why the countryside of Marche is
rich in farm houses.
What
is the point then of talking of Industrial Archaeology of an area that
even when the surrounding regions were evolving towards industrialization,
didn’t manage to keep the pace?
The answer is that workshops were built in proximity of rivers from 1800
to the first decades of 1900.Those areas were rich in raw materials (clay
and sulphur) in fact.
This is the heritage that the economic development
in Marche has left us. It is not surprising that most of these factories
are located near rivers (especially river Esino) or artificial channels (Pallavicino
Channel and Vallati Albani). Their waters are not suitable for navigation,
but thanks to the irregularity of the water flow it has been possible to
exploit them for production purposes since ancient times.
The industrial
architecture of the Marche between 1800 and 1900 is composed of paper
mills, spinning factories, fulling-mills, tan industries, brickyards,
silkworm houses, glass works, chemical industries.
But also sulphur mines,
hydroelectric power stations, cement works, machine shops, factories that
made airplanes and accordions, were present in the area. There were mostly
scattered around without any large industrial centre.
Only exceptions
where the silk reeling factories in the area around Jesi (Ancona, Jesi),
the paper production in Fabriano (Fabriano, Ancona) and the sulphur mines
in the area of Urbino and Monefeltro (Cà Bernardi).
The Adriatic region
offers a rich industrial hermitage. It is extremely diversified in itself
and it is characterized by the diffusion in the region of small
manufacturing industries.
Thus the late industrialization and the peculiar
layout in the county of the factories makes it impossible to collocate the
Marche industrial reality in a international context and comparing it with
other realities.
And so it is also impossible to collocate in a determined
architectural and historic moment the buildings that tell us about the
industrial past of Marche. It seemed to follow its own peculiar course.
© 2005
Liberation Ventures Ltd.
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