Leisure in abandoned industrial areas - Between marketing concept and self-help project

Two themes form the starting point of this essay: the increasing amount of time available for leisure activities, and the increase in the number of abandoned industrial areas, both consequences of deindustrialization. One result of these processes is that leisure time is being spent in abandoned factories, including those which have become cultural centres. Leisure time is becoming increasingly important, and this creates a seemingly limitless market for answering the need to spend this newly won free time. On the other hand, we can note that there is a lack of spaces for such activities; some of the required space may be found in abandoned industrial areas. In this essay, five examples of converted factories in Switzerland are described in order to illustrate the variety of leisure uses these spaces can be put to. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd