A scenario on conversion of industrial heritage into museum: Adana National Textile Factory

The industrial areas that are no longer functional due to a variety of reasons become the current problems of the contemporary cities. Those non-functional sites are commonly re-introduced to the cities through transformation scenarios that could respond to contemporary living conditions and current needs of the society. One of the best conservation methods to apply for those industrial sites is the transformation of them into museums. In that sense, the Adana National Textile Factory has been turned into a modern museum complex which let the visitors have a new experience and improve a new way of seeing towards historic industrial sites. The factory settlement has witnessed a long period from the late Ottoman period to modern Turkey which is still standing today. In 2006 the factory was registered and taken under preservation. It has been decided to establish a huge museum complex by 2013. The Adana Museum Complex is composed of five parts; Archaeology Museum that is opened in the depots of the Milli Mensucat Factory (2017), Agriculture, Industry, City Ethnography and Milli Mensucat Museum (to be completed in 2020) that will be opened in the factory area and social areas of the factory. For decades after its foundation, this significant urban space became an industrial landmark and a source of urban memory for a part of city dwellers. In this thesis, conversion of Adana National Textile Factory which has been regarded as the industrial landmark of the city into Adana Museum Complex is examined in the framework of collective memory and sense of place. Transformation of such industrial site into a museum complex is analyzed under the major headings of such as how the potential value of a historic industrial site is carried out today as a museum complex with its restoration project, displaying strategies and the choice of collections, how the final project speaks to the inhabitants' collective memory and to what extent the conservation of museum complex incorporates the many aspects of its place when evaluated through the concept of sense of place.