Museum of Industrial Heritage

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description

This section is dedicated to the history of the Galotti Brickworks, now home to the Museum, and to the industrial production of bricks and clay-based construction materials that began in the second half of the 19^th century with the introduction of the Hoffmann continuous kilns.

The entrance portico contains molds dating back to the early decades of the 20^th century manufactured by Società Laterizi in Imola and terracotta articles made from these molds: decorative or structural building materials; roofing tiles and chimneys; vases and ollas, including some of large dimensions. Photographs of buildings and distinguished residences in Bologna and Imola are also displayed, providing testimony to the widespread historical use of ornamental terracotta products.

The Galotti “Battiferro” Brickworks began production in 1887 in an area on the Navile Canal that was very rich in high quality clay. The facility was outfitted with a 16-chamber Hoffmann kiln. The owner of the Brickworks, Celeste Galotti made some innovative modifications to the original plans for the kiln involving smoke outlets on the external walls, a vault geometry particularly well suited to the firing of flat roofing tile, the use of straw paper in place of the heavy iron baffles between one cooking chamber and another. The Brickworks employed roughly 250 workers year-round before it was shut down in 1966.

In the 1980s, the City of Bologna purchased the Galotti company, including the building and surrounding land, and undertook a complex conservation project—limited to the kiln—and redevelopment of other portions of the building. A part of the complex has housed the Museo del Patrimonio Industriale since 1997.

The ring-shaped gallery of the oven, access to the fire chamber, the displays with scale models, and the information on panels and in videos give visitors a clear idea of how the spaces in the brickworks were originally used and the various process phases that took place there, from the extraction of the raw clay to the final firing of the products.