Norrköping | Sweden
Walking the streets of Norrköping is like a promenade through 400 years of industrial history. The town centre is literally scattered with former factories. Most of them were built between 1850 and 1920 to produce fabrics. One of them, once a cotton mill, nowadays hosts the Museum of Work. Because ...
Almadén | Spain
The "Sistine Chapel" of mining heritage lies 50 metres below the surface of Almadén: the gallery of San Andrés. Visitors of the Mining Park are able to reach it by taking a miner's cage down into the former cinnabar mine of the village. Tunnels and drifts that are centuries old lead them to a huge ...
Balmaseda | Spain
Rushing transmission belts, buzzing yarn reels, the rattling of the mechanical looms – it was that kind of noise that used to shape the everyday life of the Basque textile mill La Encartada near Bilbao for 100 years. Luckily, almost the entire equipment, predominantly dating to the decades around ...
Cornellà de Llobregat | Spain
The Cornellà Central Pumping Station has been providing the city of Barcelona with groundwater from a depth of around 35 metres since 1909. So much tradition is binding: hence the beautiful, ornate brick building, designed by the Catalan architect Amargós i Samaranch, now houses an industrial ...
Gijón | Spain
Which engineer's design is that locomotive? Who were the workers who built it? Which driver handled it, and what people and goods did it carry? Questions like that make the Asturias Railway Museum such an exciting experience. Thus, any of the 140 rolling stock – including sixteen steam locomotives, ...
Minas de Riotinto Huelva | Spain
5,000 years of mining history, Europe's largest open cast mine, and a piece of Great Britain right in the middle of Andalusia – the Parque de Minero de Riotinto is not at all short of attractions. The enormous scale of the open pit Corta Atalaya - 350 m deep, and 1,200 m X 900 m in extent - mainly ...
A large nave with pointed arches in masonry work, bathed in light and flanked by two lower aisles: doesn’t that look like a church at first sight? Not at all church-like, however, is the heavy machinery scattered all over the place, including the first steam engines of the northern Spanish province ...
Salinas de Añana | Spain
Saltmakers in the valley of the Anana Salt Flats, like those in many parts of Europe, used wind and sun to produce white salt by evaporating brine, but the area was quite exception in its use of terraces and high timber structures supporting evaporating pans and the channels that fed them with brine ...
San Martín del Rey Aurelio | Spain
How does it feel to be a miner? In Pozo Sotón, visitors can find the answer in a literally up close manner, since the guided tour through the underground galleries is a sweaty experience and requires a good physical condition. The trip starts with putting on the right dress: change of underwear, ...
Terrassa | Spain
The most eye-catching feature of the Vapor Aymerich, Amat i Jover in Terrassa near Barcelona is doubtless its unique roof. It consists of row upon row of 161 shell-shaped half arches, each with gently curving windows like stylised crests of waves. At first sight the building, designed by the Catalan ...
Vigo | Spain
The technology of fishing - from small boats to factory ships -, shellfish industry, aquafarming, but also oceanography with all its facets: the variety of aspects in the Galician Maritime Museum reflects the close and centuries-old relationship between Galicia and the sea. This can be traced back ...
Ostrava | Czech Republic
Not even 20 years ago Ostrava was called the ‘Republic’s Iron Heart’, referring to the production facilities of Dolní Vítkovice right in the center of the third-largest Czech city. The local concentration of industrial sectors is unique. The Hlubina colliery produced coal that was coked next door to ...
Ostrava-Michálkovice | Czech Republic
One might almost imagine that the smell of soap and sweat, tiny specks of coal dust and the hum of voices at a change of shift still hang somewhere in the air. Dozens of helmets, working clothes and boots hanging down from chains on the ceiling, and the tiled washrooms recall the activities that ...
Pilsen | Czech Republic
Take some malt from specially refined Moravian barley and bring the mash to the boil three times. Add medium ripe red hops from the area around Saaz each time, and leave the brew to ferment slowly at a low temperature. Finally store it for up to 30 days in cooled barrels. This recipe, written on 5th ...
Prague 6 | Czech Republic
This historical sewage treatment plant is not an ordinary museum. Rather, it is an adventurous trip to the turn of the 19th century. Right next to the immense hall of the main building is the machine shop, four times a year witnessing the huffing and puffing of two 1903 steam engines. They are still ...
Istanbul | Turkey
Broad daylight pours in through large-scale arched windows, illuminating a hall that proudly presents itself as a cathedral of technology. The control desks appear to be altars, some of them as large as cupboards, others arranged in a semi-circle as if imitating a sacred choir. From here the eyes ...
Barnsley | United Kingdom
There was heavy industry in Elsecar from the early 18th century. Elsecar and the adjacent villages were packed with collieries, ironworks, and other industrial concerns, playing a critical role in the economic development of the region. Like many villages in the area, it was for many years a ...
Birmingham | United Kingdom
The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter is a perfectly preserved workshop offering a unique glimpse of working life in Birmingham’s famous Jewellery Quarter. For more than 80 years, the firm of Smith & Pepper produced jewellery from this workshop. Explore this extraordinary time capsule on a lively ...
Blaenavon | United Kingdom
A small town – with a huge effect. The South Wales town of Blaenavon was once the spearhead of the industrial revolution. For 200 years everything revolved around coal and iron here in the Afon Lwyd Valley. This not only affected the landscape. It also affected the people. To such an extent that ...
Cromford | United Kingdom
The first modern factory in history was built in Cromford in the Derwent valley, not far from Nottingham. The Derwent is anything but a fast-flowing river. That said it flows quickly enough to be able to drive waterwheels. Richard Arkwright, a former wigmaker, recognised this fact and promptly ...