Industrial heritage reuse ideas on the move: comparative case studies in Shanghai and Chongqing, China

Following the transnational flow of industrial heritage conservation, urban China has adopted a cultural strategy – adaptive reuse of industrial heritage – for the transformation of the inner-city industrial landscape. However, a wide gap exists between the concepts and outcomes of conservation practices in most urban regeneration projects. Taking Shanghai and Chongqing as cases, this study traces the origin, process, and outcomes of industrial heritage reuse ideas. The analysis unravels the rationale for the making of discourse on heritage in local urban policies or projects. The territorialization of an idea of adaptively reusing heritage for urban regeneration merely commenced on a poetic imagination but closed on a real estate dimension, which responds to local institutional contextual constraints. This study relates the relationality – territoriality approach to heritage studies, reveals industrial heritage reuse ideas on the move in China, and argues that the reshaping of industrial heritage reuse ideas entails territoriality and relationality.