From wounds of an inconvenient & terrible past, the architectural traces of totalitarian regimes of XX° Century could become an important source of local development, if they were managed & valorized through a trans - national cultural route (in compliance with requisites set out by the Council of Europe with the Resolution n° 12/07) corroborated by tourism cultural products. ATRIUM has been designed to address this still largely unexplored opportunity. Around this new cultural route, new services, and hence new jobs, could be created (hosting, guiding, monuments, restoration etc.), especially for young people and women. ATRIUM will pursue the following specific objectives:

(I) identification of case-studies in the areas concerned (analysis of urban maps, urban & architectonical works), and hence of their underlying concept of city and power as well as meanings in term of relationships between citizens & totalitarian institutions;

(II) selection of buildings & places of particular signification under past regimes, which could have (or currentl y have) a new aesthetical, functional & social task in contemporary democratic city;

(III) preparation of a trans-national Manual (also for training purposes) of wise management, preservation re-use & economic valorisation of this "inconvenient" heritage;

(IV) identification, collection & digital cataloguing of photograph archives, films, oral witnesses, furniture, etc. of the epochs concerned;

(V) design of a cultural route on this heritage, in compliance with requisites set out by the Council of Europe;

(VI) promotion of forms of cultural tourism for economic valorisation of heritage concerned (and training of necessary operators), capable of attracting segments of international, especially European, growing cultural tourism demand, & hence to create new services & jobs.

The partnership involves a balanced mix of 19 bodies (local authorities, universities, cultural & development entities etc.), distributed in 11 countries.

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