Museum of Modernity

The Museum of Modernity opened in 2014 in a former sawmill on the edge of the Central Park of Olsztyn. (It also known as the Centre for Technology and Regional Development of Olsztyn Municipal Cultural Centre.) The brick sawmill buildings with tiled roofs date from 1884. At that time, this area was an industrial zone on the Łyna River with sawmills, breweries, a mustard factory, a foundry and a gasworks. Since 2019 the museum has expanded into a 1940s trolleybus depot. It focuses on the revolution in society since the 18th century, in transport, communications, sanitation, electricity supply, brewing and manufacturing. There are displays about the region’s technologists and designers, the lorry and bus manufacturer Komnick and the mechanical engineering company Schichau. Original objects include artefacts from the sawmill, a hydraulic ram and specimens of lightbulbs from the earliest to the present. Models show a gasworks and a tram while multimedia offer interactive resources including 3-d historical views of the city.