The 7th Chinese Academic Forum of Industrial Heritage held in Tongji University between 19 and 21 November 2016 is a significant event in the area of cultural heritage conservation in China. Thanks to the hard academic work and selfless dedication of the members of the Industrial Architecture Heritage Academic Committee (IAHAC) of the Architectural Society of China (ASC), Heritage Architecture enjoys the unique opportunity to produce a special issue for this Forum. This issue is based on the contents of 10 carefully selected conference papers and presents multiple aspects of industrial heritage conservation including the review of concepts, theories of history, value evaluation, methods in management, typological analysis, forms and structures, conservation and activation, etc. Given that Liu Boying, the Vice–chairman of IAHAC, provides an exhaustive commentary of the core contents in the introduction, this editorial only aims to 

 

share three reflections on the Forum:

Firstly, when referring to the present time of industry 4.0, we characterise by numbers the different stages in the progress of global material civilisation over the last 200 years. These stages have produced a variety of industrial heritages whose recognition, as industrialisation itself, are still under progress. Therefore, the whole world is currently thinking and exploring ways to manage and reuse this heritage, and China constitutes no exception.

Secondly, China has retained a large number of modern industrial heritages since the middle and late 19th century, bearing the imprint of industrial civilisation. This contains the dreams, struggles and memories for a strong country and the well-being of its people from many generations. Now, these industrial heritages are facing the challenges of asset preservation, mass transformation and activated regeneration. This also provides a chance to make eternal what is already devoid of life, turning industrial heritage into a vital driving force for urban development.

 

Thirdly, the cultural heritage preservation sphere in China is composed of experts and professionals from the fields of architecture, planning, engineering, material science, heritage and museology, who have produced great achievements in industrial heritage preservation and regeneration, approaching and catching up with a world–class level. Moreover, the systematic research and practise of promoting industrial heritage have moved towards higher professional standards since the establishment of IAHAC. It is my belief that this special issue of Heritage Architecture will also contribute to this important aim. (translated by Gu Xinyi and Plácido González Martínez)