Network Ruins and Green Structure Development: An Attempt to Trace Relational Spaces of a Railway Ruin

Abstract

In recent years, ruins have come to be regarded as an asset for the revitalization of urban nature, facilitating a critique of the nature–culture divide embedded in the fabric of contemporary cities and modern planning. This paper therefore argues for investigations of relational spaces of industrial ruins in order to capture their potential within green structure planning. The breakdown of the former order and the establishment of new heterogeneous relationships need to be regarded as vital background information when reinterpreting the ruin as part of the green structure. The concept network ruin is introduced here to inspire further studies of the shattered actor-network and its inertia. In order to illustrate the concept, the paper presents a case study of the ruins related to a former railway in southern Sweden. The transformation of one part of the embankment into a multifunctional greenway is studied in detail and the process of dismantling the ruin (metaphorically and literally) within planning and the public debate is scrutinized. Finally, relational spaces of the ruin are compared with the spatially and conceptually limited discourse on the greenway, in order to illustrate the fruitfulness of a more inclusive analysis.

Key Words:

• Actor-network theory
• connectivity
• industrial ruins
• greenways
• environmental planning