Located on Avenida da Universidade, City and Municipality of Covilhã, Central Portugal
The Wool Museum, also known as “MUSLAN”, is a Center of the University of Beira Interior, an organization with administrative and financial autonomy supervised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.
The Wool Museum, part of the Portuguese Museum Network since 2002, has the mission of preserving the oldest heritage of the textile manufacturing industries in a territory whose headquarters are Serra da Estrela and the historic center of Covilhã, which was open to international contacts very early on.
The Wool Museum has two museum spaces and an open-air nucleus, the space illustrates the history, technologies and wool industry in the 18th and 20th centuries.
The Museum has a Documentation Center/Historical Archive with a vast documentary collection from wool factories, corporate bodies, businesspeople, technicians and textile workers.
The space promotes educational activities for all ages, such as workshops that encourage artisanal spinning and weaving know-how and traditional arts (knitting and crochet) and guided tours for groups.
The Museum has two temporary exhibition galleries, a versatile auditorium with audiovisual equipment, a cafeteria area, and two stores (Real Fábrica de Panos and Real Fábrica Veiga).
The Wool Museum of the University of Beira Interior was established in 1989 with the purpose of safeguarding the dyeing area of the Real Fábrica de Panos, a state manufacture founded by the Marquês de Pombal in 1764.
Always with the motto “the threads of the past weaving the future”, the Museum's mission is the active conservation of the textile industrial heritage and the research and dissemination of technologies associated with the wool industrialization process in the territory of Beira Interior, which has Serra da Estrela as its headquarters and Covilhã as its historic center.
Currently, the Wool Museum is a polynucleated museum that integrates centers: Real Fábrica de Panos, Real Fábrica Veiga / Wool Interpretation Center and Râmolas de Sol.
The Wool Museum, part of the Portuguese Museum Network since 2002, has the mission of preserving the oldest heritage of the textile manufacturing industries in a territory whose headquarters are Serra da Estrela and the historic center of Covilhã, which was open to international contacts very early on.
The Wool Museum has two museum spaces and an open-air nucleus, the space illustrates the history, technologies and wool industry in the 18th and 20th centuries.
The Museum has a Documentation Center/Historical Archive with a vast documentary collection from wool factories, corporate bodies, businesspeople, technicians and textile workers.
The space promotes educational activities for all ages, such as workshops that encourage artisanal spinning and weaving know-how and traditional arts (knitting and crochet) and guided tours for groups.
The Museum has two temporary exhibition galleries, a versatile auditorium with audiovisual equipment, a cafeteria area, and two stores (Real Fábrica de Panos and Real Fábrica Veiga).
The Wool Museum of the University of Beira Interior was established in 1989 with the purpose of safeguarding the dyeing area of the Real Fábrica de Panos, a state manufacture founded by the Marquês de Pombal in 1764.
Always with the motto “the threads of the past weaving the future”, the Museum's mission is the active conservation of the textile industrial heritage and the research and dissemination of technologies associated with the wool industrialization process in the territory of Beira Interior, which has Serra da Estrela as its headquarters and Covilhã as its historic center.
Currently, the Wool Museum is a polynucleated museum that integrates centers: Real Fábrica de Panos, Real Fábrica Veiga / Wool Interpretation Center and Râmolas de Sol.
Royal Cloth Factory
This nucleus is part of the Pombaline building of the Real Fábrica de Panos, having a centralized plan and with a global area of around 6,000 m2, ordered to be built by Royal Provision of D. José I in June 1764.
The Real Fábrica de Panos was built to function as a state manufacture that suffered damage during the reign of D. Maria I when it came to occupy an area of around 10,000 m2.
The Real Fábrica dedicated to the pre- and proto-industrialization phase of wool industries lives off the archaeological and architectural structures preserved on the site.
The museumization project sought to articulate information of a technical nature (manufacturing and dyeing of woolen cloth and construction of a manufacturing space) and of an archaeological and historical nature.
Here there are 700 m2 of museum space corresponding to the spaces occupied by the old Pombaline dyeworks, which include the Dyeing Rooms of Panos de Lã, Dyeing of Lãs em Meada and Tinturaria das Dornas, the Water Tank and the Fornalhas Corridors as spaces that constitute the permanent exhibition areas.
This center also has a Temporary Exhibition Gallery and a Reservations and Museography Service area.
The Real Fábrica de Panos was built to function as a state manufacture that suffered damage during the reign of D. Maria I when it came to occupy an area of around 10,000 m2.
The Real Fábrica dedicated to the pre- and proto-industrialization phase of wool industries lives off the archaeological and architectural structures preserved on the site.
The museumization project sought to articulate information of a technical nature (manufacturing and dyeing of woolen cloth and construction of a manufacturing space) and of an archaeological and historical nature.
Here there are 700 m2 of museum space corresponding to the spaces occupied by the old Pombaline dyeworks, which include the Dyeing Rooms of Panos de Lã, Dyeing of Lãs em Meada and Tinturaria das Dornas, the Water Tank and the Fornalhas Corridors as spaces that constitute the permanent exhibition areas.
This center also has a Temporary Exhibition Gallery and a Reservations and Museography Service area.
Real Fábrica Veiga
The University of Beira Interior also has another historic building, the Real Fábrica Veiga, which was architecturally intervened with the purpose of installing a new museum nucleus, the headquarters of the Museum and the Documentation/Historical Archive Center.
Real Fábrica Veiga is a property made of granite stonework, located next to Ribeira da Goldra, in Covilhã, built by José Mendes Veiga, whose business activity took place between the end of the 19th century. 18th and early 20th century. XIX.
This new nucleus presents the technological evolution that occurred in the field of wool during the 19th and 20th centuries and a significant factory collection was gathered.
In April 2005, the remodeled complex of the Real Fábrica Veiga/Wool Interpretation Center was inaugurated, with the facilities of the Museum headquarters, the Wool Industrialization Museum Center (19th-20th centuries) and the Documentation Center/Historical Archive.
This Museum Center has been open to the public since May 17, 2011, when it was officially opened.
Real Fábrica Veiga is a property made of granite stonework, located next to Ribeira da Goldra, in Covilhã, built by José Mendes Veiga, whose business activity took place between the end of the 19th century. 18th and early 20th century. XIX.
This new nucleus presents the technological evolution that occurred in the field of wool during the 19th and 20th centuries and a significant factory collection was gathered.
In April 2005, the remodeled complex of the Real Fábrica Veiga/Wool Interpretation Center was inaugurated, with the facilities of the Museum headquarters, the Wool Industrialization Museum Center (19th-20th centuries) and the Documentation Center/Historical Archive.
This Museum Center has been open to the public since May 17, 2011, when it was officially opened.
Ramolas do Sol
As Râmolas do Sol is an open-air museum located next to Ribeira da Carpinteira (Sineiro, next to Pólo IV of the University of Beira Interior, UBI, Covilhã), which was preserved and integrated into a UBI Car Park, having been opened on April 30, 1998.
The Râmolas do Sol are the result of a process of conservation and museumization of a wool shed belonging to the former firm of Ignácio da Silva Fiadeiro (in operation from 1910 to 1939).
The museum center occupies a total area of 652.7 m2, and constitutes a milestone in the policy of safeguarding Covilhã's industrial heritage and in the creation of the Serra da Estrela wool ecomuseum.
The Râmolas do Sol is an intervention that values the relationship between the aspects of industrial and natural heritage through the recognition of cultural landscapes inserted in the ecological aspect of the heritage.
The Râmolas do Sol are the result of a process of conservation and museumization of a wool shed belonging to the former firm of Ignácio da Silva Fiadeiro (in operation from 1910 to 1939).
The museum center occupies a total area of 652.7 m2, and constitutes a milestone in the policy of safeguarding Covilhã's industrial heritage and in the creation of the Serra da Estrela wool ecomuseum.
The Râmolas do Sol is an intervention that values the relationship between the aspects of industrial and natural heritage through the recognition of cultural landscapes inserted in the ecological aspect of the heritage.
