Reuse of Factory Buildings for Leisure and Possible Re-Elaboration of the Meanings of Industrial Heritage through Tourism: A Study in São Paulo, Brazil

This study focuses on three experiences of reusing factory buildings in São Paulo: a former drum and refrigerator factory converted into a leisure equipment; a textile factory transformed into the contemporary art space; and a sugar mill, converted into a public leisure and events space. The approach is multidisciplinary, seeking to observe in each case the relevance of the factory in their socio-historical contexts of origin, the memory associated with them in their process of patrimonialization, and the processes of rehabilitation and insertion into the leisure circuit. Among the concepts mobilized, we used the idea of the urban commons - above all to interpret the meaning expressed by the factories in which generations of workers and their families have established social relations - and the idea of cultural mediation - taken as a reference to analyze the role of heritage sites themselves in what they connect to previous memories and meanings, but also to tourist narratives and museum exhibitions, consumer objects and events through which social groups effectively relate to, appropriate and rework the meanings of industrial heritage. The objectives of the study were to analyze the issues involved in reclassifying industrial heritage for tourism and leisure and to reflect on the possibilities of collective appropriation of these assets. After all, how do heritage, tourism and leisure come together in the cases observed and what are the underlying issues? The sources included bibliographic and documentary material, field visits accompanied by interviews with qualified interlocutors and managers of the three sites analyzed. As complementary support for measuring the projection that tourist use promotes of these three factories, we observed how each of them appears in the records that their visitors make on the digital network