Our industrial heritage - The industrial heritage region of Northern Bavaria

Industry and industrial culture in Northern Bavaria

There are cities and regions in Germany and Europe that are clearly associated with an industrial company or a branch of industry. For example, the industrial heritage of the Ruhr region is associated with coal mining or the industrial history of the city of Manchester with the textile industry. Is there a similar connection with the northern Bavarian region? And what is actually meant by Northern Bavaria? From an administrative perspective, the northern Bavarian region consists of the current administrative districts of Middle Franconia, Upper Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Lower Franconia. However, Northern Bavaria is not a homogeneous economic area, nor does it have a uniform level of industrialisation and is also characterised by regionally different branches of industry. Depending on historically evolved structures, transport routes or available mineral resources, various regional and local leading industries have emerged over the last two centuries, which could dominate the respective sub-region for decades: For example, the north-east of Upper Franconia was characterised by the textile and clothing industry and the central Upper Palatinate by the coal and steel industry.

The association "INO - Industriekulturregion Nordbayern e.V."

The foundation of the association "INO - Industriekulturregion Nordbayern e.V." is based on the initiative of the Institut für Fränkische Landesgeschichte, the Industriemuseum Lauf, the Museum Industriekultur Nürnberg and the Porzellanikon in Selb to research, visualise and shape the industrial heritage of Northern Bavaria. INO aims to achieve this by networking and coordinating research and cultural institutions, establishing a joint research infrastructure and creating tourism incentives in the region. A key component of this is to involve the people of northern Bavaria in the communication of industrial history through a participatory approach and to make new research findings accessible to the public without barriers, not least to promote the transfer of knowledge between science and society.

Networking, networking, networking

Before the association could be founded, an extensive and powerful network of local and state politicians, museums and archives, interested associations and private individuals as well as Bavarian state ministries and district offices had to be established and their support solicited. The first milestone was the "Thurnau Declaration" of 7 October 2022, in which we presented the project objectives to invited stakeholders and an interested public at Thurnau Castle. Further network meetings in early 2023 were followed by the founding of the association on 14 July 2023 by 28 founding members from all over northern Bavaria at the Museum of Industrial Culture in Nuremberg. And so work began on realising the goals that had been set.