History of The Museum
The Museum of Textile Technology took over the exhibits connected with weaver’s craft from the main seat of the Museum in Bielsko-Biała, and then gradually it enriched its collection with machines and devices taken from the local textile factories. At first the branch occupied the buildings of ZPW Rytex (Wool Industry Works), but in 1983 the museum was relocated in the part of the ZPW Bawelana buildings. The renovation works in the buildings started in 1992, and the first part of the exhibition was open for public on the 2nd December 1996. The exhibition on the first floor was opened a year later.
Till 1995 the branch was called The Museum of Textile Technology. However it received lots of items connected with other kinds of technology so its name was changed into the present one. Along with the machines and devices connected with textile industry, which take up most of the exhibition, there are also items devoted to the history of Bielsko-Biała fire-brigade and waterworks, a small printing room and a so-called museum storage. Even the traditions of the local metal processing industry were not omitted. Depending on the financial means a restoration of the further rooms and the extension of the exhibitions are planned.
The Museum occupies some of the buildings of the old cloth factory which used to belong to the Büttners family. The factory was one of the biggest textile factories at the time. In 1868 the local clothier master Karol Traugott Büttner bought a garden in the Żywiec Suburb, where he put up a two-storey building with annexes. In 1884 the company was inherited by his sons Karol Teodor and Gustaw Adolf who ran it as Karl Büttners Söhne (Karl Büttners Sons). They expanded the company. In 1889 the factory hall was put up on Sukinnicza Street, a boiler room was built and steam drive was introduced. In the first decade of the 20th century a storied factory hall with a vast garret was built, now housing the main part of the museum exhibition.
In the 1930s the company was taken over K.T. Büttner’s sons: Karol August, Paweł Maurycy and Herbert Oskar, and G. A. Büttner’s sons: Jan Karol and Kurt Ernest, and their brother-in-law, Erwin Kerger. With starting the carpet weaving mill they offered more products. The company owned the main factory and its branch in Biała which until 1910 was Krebok & Then cloth factory belonging to the Büttners. It burned down completely in the 1930s. Also a Kerger’s dyeing house in Biała was in use.
After the World War II the nationalized factory in Bielsko was a part of the L. Lasek Textile Industry Works, later known as Bawelana factory B. After stopping the production in 1983 some of the factory objects were given to the Museum of Technology and Textile Industry.
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