ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the principles by which one can use the archaeology of industrial buildings as a source for understanding the process of industrialisation. Industrial buildings and their works are prime evidence, not only for the technologies of different industries but also for the way that firms developed, the cycle of decision-making and the pattern of industrialisation. Industrial buildings have tended to be regarded as a subcategory of architectural history, with particular attention being given to the exceptional, the most ornate, the most unusual, the earliest or the largest. Architectural historians of industrial buildings are more often concerned with the dichotomy of function and ornament, whereas the industrial archaeologist places the main emphasis on process and the development of new building materials. These approaches only come together where a building illustrates through its materials an ‘industrial’ development.1 The availability and use of materials, both traditional and modern, will be seen not as an end in itself but as one of the many factors in the evolution of industrial building form.
