workers. Later it made more basic objects such as drainage pipes. It closed in 1972. The last owner, François Laurent, worked with an association of enthusiasts to save the complex as a monument to industrial

photography. As a mark of respect to the museum in 1994, the year of its bicentenary, the designer Francois Schuiten transformed the nearby Metro station, Arts-et-Metiers into what appears to be a vast machine

family concern. Schneider made his company into one of the most innovative in Europe. He encouraged Francois Bourdon (d 1865) in the development of the steam hammer in the late 1830s, and a 1300-tonne steam

of Annonay in south-eastern France. His background there was rich in technology. His father Marc François Séguin founded a company to manufacture textiles; his mother Thérèse-Augustine de Montgolfier was

three country area of the Saarland, Lorraine and Luxemburg. It was first set up in Lorraine by Jean-Francois Boch in 1748, and soon the business began an early form of serial production in Luxemburg. In Saarland

1867: he used it to make plant tubs. The groundbreaking potential was recognised by his compatriot François Hennebique: thanks to the combination of steel rods or steel meshes, which absorb tensile forces