Uhrenmuseum Karlstein
Small museum in a former gendarmerie station devoted to the clockmaking tradition of the Waldviertel "Horologenland", with a living workshop.
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About the museum
The idea of setting up a clock museum in Karlstein took concrete shape in 2000. An association founded for the purpose provided the legal basis, and since 14 July 2003 the museum has been open to visitors in the rooms of the disused gendarmerie station.
The village is considered an obvious location: around 1730, a craftsman who had immigrated from the Bohemian Forest settled in the northern Waldviertel and passed on his knowledge of clockmaking. Simple wooden wall clocks grew into a veritable cottage industry that employed more than a hundred families in the 19th century and supplied tens of thousands of clocks a year to the countries of the Monarchy. In 1873/74 a technical school for the clock industry was established in Karlstein, from which today's clockmaking school of the Mechatronics HTL emerged; several clock factories followed from the 1880s onward.
The exhibition shows around 200 exhibits: models of escapements, striking mechanisms and perpetual calendars, along with tools, measuring instruments and machines. In a "living workshop", clocks are repaired, and precision pendulum clocks, planetariums, table clocks and wristwatches are made by hand in small series.
Highlights
- Around 200 exhibits on the history of clockmaking
- Living workshop with clock repair and hand production of precision pendulum clocks
- Models of escapements, striking mechanisms and perpetual calendars
- Tools, measuring instruments and machines of the clockmaker's trade
- Museum in a former gendarmerie station
- Founded
- 2003
- Operated by
- Verein „Uhrenmuseum Karlstein“
Admission & discounts
| Adults | €3 |
|---|
Admission 3 euros per person.
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