The Industrial Revolution introduced a new category of landscape, the industrial landscape, overwhelmingly characterised by the diverse range of man-made elements which structure it. These elements appear to have no relation to each other, but in fact join together to form a particular kind of system, the mining system, and constitute a unified whole on a higher level than can be appreciated in terms of landscape.

Perspective from slag heap n°14, Auchel

They exist alongside each other and combine to form a plural space, the result of initiatives started without a general organisational and spatial plan, but which, with hindsight, contribute to the creation of a singular organisation. The industrial landscape is an entity which came into being with no intention of developing into a landscape, but which, over time, became one and can be recognised as such.

11-19 Pit, Loos-en-Gohelle

The Nord-Pas de Calais Coalfield offers a remarkable insight into the history of industrialisation: its landscape constitutes an example of a “total environment”, which led at lightening pace to the previously rural landscape being encased in an entirely man-made structure. In the blink of an eye, mankind modified the physical characteristics of this landscape by turning its surface shape and structure upside down (with forest clearances and surface collapses) and introducing all the technical, social and architectural features linked to the extraction and production of coal.