The Rooftile and Brickworks Museum N. & S. Tsalapatas, one of the rare surviving examples of an industrial complex in Greece, joined the expanding Network of Thematic Technological Museums of the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP) in 2004. The museum’s goal is to bring to the fore the historical identity of the town of Volos. Today, it constitutes a strong pole of attraction that strengthens the cultural reserve of the Thessaly region, and contributes to the preservation and promotion of industrial heritage and the development of cultural tourism in the wider region of the Magnissia prefecture.

The brickworks were founded in 1926 by the Tsalapatas brothers and cover a total area of 22,000m2 (236,806ft2, or roughly 5,44 acres). The factory used to produce a wide variety of bricks and tiles and, at the peak of its activity, employed 250 people, with equipment corresponding to 300HP of installed power. The N. & S. Tsalapatas Rooftile and Brickworks Factory closed down in 1978.

In 2004, the Piraeus Bank Cultural Foundation accepted the undertaking of creating a model Rooftile and

Brickwork Museum in the factory’s main facilities (5,000m2, or 53,820 ft2). Two years later, the Tsalapatas Factory “restarted operations”: the grinders, the compressors, the cutters, the clay silos, the trolleys and the Hoffmann kiln recompose the production chain, allowing visitors to familiarize themselves with the traditional professions of brick-maker and tiler and the refining and processing techniques of the raw materials.

Held in the building complex that the actual production took place in, the permanent exhibition also includes scale models and abundant audiovisual material, while the special educational programmes and events ensure the public’s direct contact with all the stages of tile and brick manufacturing.

originally posted by

PIOP | Museums Department