The European Route of Industrial Heritage
A cultural itinerary of the Council of Europe, this initiative aims to highlight a hundred or so particularly remarkable industrial anchor points, offering an attractive and educational tourist program. The Grossouvre hall is one of the few places so designated.
The Grossouvre Market Hall
Iron ore, for the raw material, a river, for motive power, and a forest, for the vegetable coal: the elements essential to the metallurgical industry were combined to make the region a hotbed of activity.
The Grossouvre Hall, intended for the storage of coal, is a very particular building: it has no load-bearing walls, but a framework of intertwined beams supported by forty beams. The sections of wall that we think we see are only facings! It is the last building of this type in Europe. It is there that, today, is installed "Espace Métal", a dive in the universe of the forges of the Val d'Aubois.
The museum
It is a rather particular museum, since you can touch almost everything, and since the visit is led by two virtual characters, one of whom brings to life the metallurgy of the nineteenth century, and the other presents its evolution, and its modern uses. This gives rise to many exchanges between them, including, for example, those that take place in the famous wagon on which the journey begins!
From room to room, we are led, on the first floor, to discover the transformation of iron ore into cast iron (we even find ourselves in a blast furnace!), then, on the first floor, to understand the transformation of cast iron into steel, then the recycling of metals. The scenography, beautiful and lively, captivates and interests. Life-size models, period photos, videos, optical theater, the whole thing succeeds in being both entertaining and educational.
The first low-cost housing
To house workers and their families, a building was constructed around 1833. The housing units are served by exterior walkways. A very rare example of a new type of industrial architecture, it can be considered as the first low-cost housing building.
Espace Métal
The Grossouvre Hall
2, route de Verreaux
18000 Grossouvre
Tel : 02 48 77 06 38
halledegrossouvre@orange.fr
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
(free version)
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