Abstract

Land-In-Pro is a research project that has investigated the legacy of 20th-century industrialisation and deindustrialisation processes in the Ligurian landscape, understood as a complex system in which material and immaterial traces intertwine in the present as testimonies to the recent past and potential resources for a sustainable future.

In Liguria, between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, numerous industrial plants were established along the coast and in inland areas, partly due to the development of road and rail networks. However, the economic decline of the 1970s and shifts in global industrial dynamics led to the abandonment of many production sites, particularly in the hinterland. Today, these sites remain as traces of a past deeply rooted in the memory of local communities. Using an interdisciplinary methodology that integrated historical and bibliographical research, analysis of territorial policies, architectural and territorial analysis, and ethnographic methods, the project took the Bormida Valley, in the province of Savona, as a case study due to its significant industrial history linked to the chemical sector.

The integration and analysis of spatial, documentary and ethnographic data has enabled the construction of a structured knowledge base and the development of a transferable procedure for the characterisation and assessment of Historic Industrial Landscapes, based on the Land-In-Pro Historic Industrial Landscape Classification (HILC) and on the identification of the Historic Industrial Settlement System (HISS). The HILC is conceived as an experimental procedure applicable to other post-industrial contexts and as a methodological and operational advance in the study of industrial cultural landscapes, understood as complex socio-spatial systems to be integrated into government policies governing territorial transformations from the perspective of local sustainable development.