Farm Technology Museum

The museum is 10 km north of Steyr in Upper Austria. It is housed in a courtyard of historical farm buildings and nearby barns. It has over 6,000 exhibits on display in two sections: one devoted to traditional farming life and rural culture and one devoted to vehicles and technology. The Sandmair family operated the buildings as a working farm until 1972. Rooms furnished to recreate aspects of rural life include an office, a bedroom, a laundry, a dairy and workshops for making metal and wooden tools. A gallery of original hand-tools for many purposes shows the development of different regional types. The machinery on show includes some of the earliest harvesting and threshing machines and tractors. The museum also displays vehicles: bicycles, motorbikes and cars. There is a particularly strong collection of products from the Austrian company Steyr, which was founded in 1864, and by the Czech company Praga, started in 1907.