WALKING INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE: promoting Industrial Tourism in Emilia Romagna

Why Churches rather than Factories?

A simple question, almost naive, like the one a child asks a parent: but why? There is no answer. It is what it is. The grown-ups decide.
But the child refuses to accept it – it’s not fair: he wants to go and see the big industrial warehouses. Just like us.

So let’s return to the question: why choose to enhance a 15th-century church and not an old early-20th-century sugar factory – the former fully restored while the latter is now in ruins? The distinctive and identifying features of a territory are a social construct; they do not exist in nature. The choice – church or factory – is made by the community and its decision-makers.

In recent years, tourism promotion in our country has followed a unique way: squeezing the art cities and historic centers to the point of collapse. The images of turnstiles in Venice speak for themselves. Great, we tourism professionals might say, rubbing our hands. But then the pandemic hits: more than anything else, COVID-19 called that model into question. And for a brief moment – summer 2020 – people started talking again about local tourism, only to revert, once the country reopened (and then closed again), to business as usual.

What did we learn? Nothing. We perhaps missed an opportunity. In light of the challenges and critical issues highlighted by the pandemic, now more than ever we need to look beyond and try to imagine a complementary tourism horizon, starting from our widespread heritage. But what kind of heritage? Factories, of course.

Our territory is scattered with industrial relics: foundries, mines, workshops, breweries, manufacturing plants, assembly lines, power stations, workers’ villages, and offices – all have become part of the urban landscape and of our past and present history. A heritage we absolutely do not want to lose.

Through meetings with various local communities and the networking of unique territorial promotion practices, we’ve created a new path:
We call it the Route of the Industrial Heritage of Emilia-Romagna.

The project WALKING INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE ER – Industrial Tourism Routes in Emilia-Romagna includes several cities along the Via Emilia: from Parma to Forlì, passing through Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna.

The project aims to enhance the regional industrial heritage through three main actions:

• Dissemination: organizing conferences and themed talks on industry and tourism

• Training: for tour guides and industry professionals on industrial routes

• Promotion: through events and guided on-site tours

The project will officially kick off with a public event at the former Scalo Ravone in Bologna, now Dumbo Bologna, at Via Casarini 19. There will be a brief presentation by the project partners, followed by a tourist itinerary through the Porto district, exploring the history of the Popolarissime (working-class housing), the stories connected to the former Grandi Riparazioni workshops of Bologna, ending in the Dumbo spaces, now fully regenerated and dedicated to culture.

The Industrial path continues toward Reggio Emilia for a tour of the working-class district of Santa Croce esterna, which developed in osmosis with one of the area’s largest industrial complexes: the Officine Reggiane.

It ends in Modena for an evening walk along the railway.

This project is ambitious but still evolving – and, most importantly, eager to expand the network, which currently includes Free Walking Tour Italia, Spazi Indecisi, Save Industrial Heritage, and Musei Urbani.

Between church and factory, we always choose the factory.