Norwegian Industrial Workers Museum ( no, Norsk Industriarbeidermuseum) is an industrial

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

located at

Rjukan Rjukan () is a town and the administrative centre of Tinn municipality in Telemark, Norway. It is situated in Vestfjorddalen, between Møsvatn and Lake Tinn, and got its name after Rjukan Falls west of the town. The Tinn municipality council gra ...

Tinn Tinn is a municipality in Telemark in the county of Vestfold og Telemark in Norway. It is part of the traditional regions of Upper Telemark and Øst-Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Rjukan. The parish of ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. Located in the

Vemork Vemork is a hydroelectric power plant outside Rjukan in Tinn, Norway. The plant was built by Norsk Hydro and opened in 1911, its main purpose being to fix nitrogen for the production of fertilizer. At opening, it was the world's largest power pl ...

power station, it was established in 1988 to allow the preservation of industrial society created by

Norsk Hydro Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around the world a ...

when they established themselves in Rjukan in 1907. The museum is an anchor point on the

European Route of Industrial Heritage The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a tourist route of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. This is a tourism industry information initiative to present a network of industrial heritage sites across Europe. The ...

Premise

The research and exhibitions of the museum span the history of power-intensive industry in Norway after 1900; including

hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

, electrochemical industry and the premise for the workers. In particular local heritage from Tinn and the

Norwegian heavy water sabotage The Norwegian heavy water sabotage ( nb, Tungtvannsaksjonen; nn, Tungtvassaksjonen) was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt German heavy water production via hydroelectric plants in Nazi Germany-occupied Norway during World War II, involvi ...

are given high priority.

History

The foundation running the museum was established on November 3, 1983 by the municipality, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate and the labour unions

Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions ( no, Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, LO) is a national trade union center, decidedly the largest and probably the most influential umbrella organization of labour unions in Norway. The 21 national union ...

, Norwegian Workers Education Association, Norwegian Union of Chemical Industry Workers and

EL & IT Forbundet The Electrician and IT Workers' Union ( no, EL og IT Forbundet, EL og IT) is a trade union in Norway. The union was formed by the 1999 merger of the Norwegian Union of Electricians and Power Station Workers, and the Norwegian Telecommunication ...

. Later this was supplemented by the United Federation of Trade Unions, Statkraft and

Statnett Statnett is a Norwegian state owned enterprise responsible for owning, operating and constructing the stem power grid in Norway. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway. Statnett also owns 30% of the Nord Pool Spot along with other Nor ...

, but the latter two have since left. The museum moved into the

power station, since Norsk Hydro had abandoned the

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...

plant in 1971—and the first plant in the world to mass-produce heavy water. The first

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

was hired in 1984, followed by two more employees in 1985. This phase of the establishing had a widespread goal, attempting to preserve both pre- and post-industrial heritage from Rjukan, including the establishment of Tinn Museum, a heritage village dedicated to the preindustrial society, in 1984. The permanent exhibition at Vemork was opened on June 20, 1988. In 2004 Tinn Museum was integrated into the Norwegian Industrial Workers Museum; which has the responsibilities for preserving local history from Tinn. This includes a digitalized collection of more than 30,000 photographs. The industry at Rjukan had its own railway, Rjukanbanen, that connected to the

Tinnsjø railway ferry Tinnsjø railway ferry was a Norwegian railway ferry service on Lake Tinn that connected the Rjukan Line and Tinnoset Line. The long ferry trip made it possible for Norsk Hydro to transport its fertilizer from the plant at Rjukan to the port in ...

. In 2004 the foundation running the heritage railway was discontinued, and in 2007 the Norwegian Industry Workers Museum was launched as the new operator by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage. This would allow the plants and Rjukan along with the railway, and equivalent closed plants at Odda to be nominated as a

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

by the directorate. In 2007 the Norwegian Ministry of Culture announced they would give NOK 8 million for the expansion of the museum.

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control Museums in Vestfold og Telemark Industry museums in Norway Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions Tinn Museums established in 1983 Science museums in Norway

Premise

History

See also

References

External links