German
Sächsisches Industriemuseum
How to find us:
- Street
- Zwickauer Straße 119
- Zip, City
- 09112 Chemnitz
- Country
- Germany
- Phone
- +49 371 36 76 140
- Fax
- +49 371 36 76 141
- Web
- http://www.saechsisches-industriemuseum.de
- chemnitz@saechsisches-industriemuseum.de
- Tags
- #Industrie
Description
As the site of the Zweckverband Sächsisches Industriemuseum, the Industriemuseum Chemnitz presents regional industrial history. Its exhibition rooms are located in the former foundry hall of a historic machine-tool factory on a long‑used industrial site in Chemnitz.
The site’s origins go back to the 19th century: a workshop operation for the manufacture of lathes and machine tools was founded in 1874; the founders later went their separate ways as entrepreneurs. At the end of the 19th century one of the entrepreneurs took over an existing foundry and continuously expanded the premises. In 1907 a modern foundry hall was built with a working area of around 4,500 m²; two cupola furnaces then enabled an annual production of about 6,000 tonnes of machinery castings. In a neighbouring assembly hall from 1897 lead‑screw and planing lathes, planing and drilling machines and steam engines were assembled. The post‑war economic crisis led to the closure of the foundry in 1925; the hall was later used as storage. During the Second World War production was temporarily switched to armaments orders; in 1946 this production was dismantled and subsequently rebuilt for civilian manufacture. In the GDR period the foundry belonged to a Kombinat of Chemnitz foundries and bore the name of a political official. After a new central foundry went into operation, the plant was shut down in 1982 and the site was slated for demolition.
The political upheavals prevented the demolition; in 1996 the city decided to establish a central industrial museum at this location. A first small industrial museum had already opened in 1992 at another former foundry site and was later closed. From 1999 the city gradually renovated the site: assembly halls and outbuildings were removed, while the foundry hall and the adjacent machine house were preserved as the authentic core. Today the holdings comprise about 30,000 objects in 21 thematic fields; around 850 items are on permanent display. The collection contains nearly 500 machine tools and about 50 woodworking machines. The museum receives an annual subsidy of around €2.2 million; daily visitor numbers are about 30 on ordinary days and rise to over 3,500 on event days. In June 2023 the millionth visitor was welcomed.
Architecturally, the foundry hall and the machine house are significant examples of industrial architecture: the foundry hall is divided into four bays, each approximately 14 metres wide and 52 metres long, features a brick façade and a sawtooth roof, and presents a striking round‑arched façade to Zwickauer Straße. A new connecting wing between the preserved buildings now forms the main entrance; the newly redesigned museum was opened in April 2003.
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