Supergeil Deutsch Blog: Voelklinger Huette

One day I convinced Lena, Fabian, and Kyndall to go to Völklinger Hütte with me. Völklinger Hütte is a historic iron works that has become a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. The giant foundry and mill began in the late 19th century and was operated for around a 100 years. When the company went bankrupt, the community decided to convert the facility into an interactive museum on iron and to convert part of the facility into a museum.

First we went to the exhibit on Egypt. The coolest part of the exhibit was a giant timeline from the beginning of civilization to the present, with different civilizations and their reigns marked. It put into perspective how relatively short 'AD' is and how long the Egyptian empire lasted, especially compared to other 'great' empires such as the Greeks, Romans, or Aztecs.

The museum space is located in the 'blower hall' of the iron works. This hall generated the compressed air to feed the fires of the crucibles. The exhibits were placed all around the old equipment of this hall, which had been cleaned and cut open so you could see what the machines did and how they worked. My interest was split between Egypt and some of the massive pump fly-wheels or compressors...

http://www.voelklinger-huette.org/typo3temp/pics/370fa00d00.jpg

This is a shot from a different museum exhibit, but you can see how everything is worked into the industrial setting.

http://www.urlaub-und-reise-news.de/images/news/13074_news-2014-01-Weltkulturerbe-Voelklinger-Huette-Pop_Panorama_Merkel.jpg

After Egypt, we went to go see the Iron Works museum itself. The museum was almost completely empty (Tuesday 9am) and completely open to explore. We got lost a few times in random sections of the massive plant because it was so large, open ended, and devoid of workers.