‘Challenges and Opportunities in the Conservation, Promotion, and Adaptive Reuse of the Industrial Heritage’

Written by Dr Shreen Amin, Curator, Museologist and Heritage Professional, Egyptian Museum, Cairo
and Visiting Professor at Helwan University Egypt (Egypt, ITP 2016)

Dear colleagues and friends, let me share with you my experience attending the international conference on Challenges and Opportunities in the Conservation, Promotion, and Adaptive Reuse of the Industrial Heritage, 6th edition, organized by the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography, Department of Human and Economic Geography and the Interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Research on Territorial Dynamics, Bucharest, Romania from 21 – 22 September 2023.

The conference aimed to ensure a good framework to present and debate the complex issue of industrial heritage (inventory, conservation, promotion, reuse), with the participation of specialists from different related fields. The objective of the conference was to highlight the current trends in the field of industrial heritage management. The purpose was to put an accent on, and provoke a discussion on the challenges related to the preservation, restoration, reuse, and promotion of industrial heritage, etc., as well as to exchange ideas and knowledge.

I presented a paper titled Industrial Heritage in Museums of Egypt Collections Care and Interpretation: Helwan Observatory Museum as a Case Study. The emphasis of my paper was to highlight how to safeguard industrial heritage via complementary exhibitions and interpretation approaches in the museums of Egypt.

Egypt witnessed an industrial renaissance in the 19th century by “Muhammad Ali” whose era is known for establishing a major industrial base, and there are many industrial landmarks in Egypt. The paper highlights the collection care and interpretation of The Helwan Observatory and its museum, an astronomical observatory located in Helwan, south of Cairo, Egypt, established in 1903. It is one of the oldest, largest, and most important astronomical observatories in the Arab world. The museum interprets rare industrial collections in this field where Helwan astronomers participated (1914-1921) in the international program of measuring fluctuations of the Solar Constant. Helwan Observatory is the Institute for Astronomy and Geophysics in Egypt.

For more information about Helwan Observatory, visit the UNESCO website https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5574/

You can read about Shreen’s paper in the book of abstracts, available HERE.

Congratulations, Shreen!