German Journal Industriekultur 4.24 presents four ERIH Anchor Points in Poland and Switzerland
Attendees of this year's ERIH Annual Conference are well acquainted with these two Anchor Points: the EC1 Łódź - City of Culture and the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, Poland. Together with two further Anchor Points – the Railway Museum of Silesia, also in Poland, and the Südbahn Museum in Mürzzuschlag, Austria – they showcase the exciting and diverse nature of industrial heritage. All the more reason for the current issue of the Journal Industriekultur to take an in-depth look at them.
The roughly 40,000-square-metre site of the EC1 Łódź - City of Culture right next to Łódź's main train station is a place steeped in the city's history. When it first went online in 1907 as the second largest power station in the Kingdom of Poland, the site became a driving force behind industrialisation. It remained the city's most important heating and power station until 2000 and then underwent an impressive transformation into one of Europe's most significant hubs of (industrial) culture, home to a Science & Technology Center and the National Center for Film Culture, among other things.
Another icon of the emerging industrial city of Łódź, the ‘White Factory’ was the first fully-fledged textile mill in Poland. The site is now home to the Central Museum of Textiles and is considered one of the country's most impressive monuments of industrial architecture. With its extensive range of machinery and several major textile collections, it provides a detailed insight into 200 years of everyday working life and textile history in Łódź. A special feature of the museum is the way it combines technical and industrial history with art, design, fashion, regional history and cultural anthropology.
Two intersecting railway lines and excellent transport links have made the previously uninhabited Jaworzyna Śląska an important transport hub ever since the mid-19th century. The Railway Museum of Silesia uses a large number of historical rolling stock and a ‘steam locomotive route’ that follows technical supply systems, a turntable and a roundhouse to illustrate the history of the town. All this has been made possible by the hard work of dozens of railway enthusiasts, who have, among other things, carefully restored 40 steam locomotives from Poland, Germany, England and the United States.
The Southern Railway, completed in 1857, went down in railway history with a hitherto inconceivable time record of 13 hours and 4 minutes for the Vienna to Trieste route. To achieve this, it broke new ground by enabling rail vehicles to cross the Alps for the first time. The Südbahn Museum pays tribute to this remarkable feat. It is located at Mürzzuschlag station, once the base for the heavy steam locomotives needed to pull trains over the almost 1,000-metre-high ridge of the Semmering. A few of these locomotives can still be seen here today, along with a true-to-life ‘tunnel experience’ and famous rail travellers on the ‘Train of Destinies’.
ERIH aricles in 'Industriekultur' (de):
Einst Strom und Wärme, heute Wissen. Das Kulturzentrum EC1 in Lódź
Gewebte Geschichte authentisch erzählt. Das Zentrale Textilmuseum in Lódź
Verkehrsgeschichte auf den Punkt gebracht. Das Eisenbahnmuseum von Schlesien in Jaworzyna Śląska
Eisenbahn überwindet erstmals die Alpen. Das Südbahn Museum in Mürzzuschlag