Fengersfors Works - musealisation to working order as instrument for regional development

Fengersfors Works is situated in the northen part of the Region Vastra Gotaland (West Sweden), in a landscape characterised to day by decreasing population, unemployment and urgent need to revitalise local economies. The Works history dates back to the end of 18th century, first as iron works and later turned into a paper mill. In the 1970s the Works went bankrupt and was left more or less unattended until the mid 1990s, when local initiatives led to the present situation where a group of artisans and craftsmen together with a fish hatchery, selling of recycled building materials, and a small jeans designing company are established in the former industrial buildings. The volume thus in use corresponds roughly to c. 60% of the total building stock at the site. In the parts not in use, we find some key topics in the development of paper milling, such as groundwood pulp grinders with rotating stones, (hollandare), paper machine from 1906, and dating from 1948 as the first sulphate paper mill in the world a 19 meters high continuous pulp boiler. There is also an illustrative representation of power production in industrial plants by a steam engine, boiler and D.C. and A.C. generators, all installed in the 1920s. These parts of the Works are rapidly decaying and will soon become a ruin unless an economic base for their restoration could be developed. Industrial buildings with empty volumes are fairly easy to adapt to new uses, thus generating the economic base providing funding for running costs and maintenance. When such buildings, on the other hand, still have their original production equipment, re-adaptation other than museum or renewed production is harder to achieve. The objective for the continued restoration of Fengersfors Works is therefore to restore remaining production equipment to as near working order as possible, aiming at pedagogical, museological and low-scale industrial uses, attracting spin-off activities with positive effects on local economy. The overall goal is then to balance cultural heritage both as a re-active historical story teller as well as an active societal development instrument, thus defining working order to a broader content.