Adaptive Reuse and Heritage Making

Aleida Assmann uses the term “places of commemoration” to identify the spaces whose history was violently interrupted, leaving a tangible and intangible void in the collective memory. The remains of former prisons distributed in European cities are their sourrandings, do constitute a European heritage, bearing unexploited historical, architectural, social and cultural value. In particular, with Macdonald, I assume that these can be regarded as a difficult heritage, unsettling and troublesome witnesses, which stand still despite forgetting practices. Furthermore, I am here bringing forward the idea that it is a neglected heritage, as such as comprising artefacts that are hardly or only recently considered in literature, as well as overlooked historical traces and remains that have lost their relationship with their places and people. By analysing selected emblematic examples of adaptive reuse of former prisons, the paper will reflect on strategies, tools and approaches to reactivate “neglected contentious heritages sites”.