Photo: Ryfylkemuseet · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Industriarbeidermuseet og Åbøbyen

Museum in a former four-family house in Åbøbyen in Sauda, with two furnished workers’ flats from the 1920s and 1960s and the exhibition Under røyken.

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About the museum

Industriarbeidermuseet (the Industrial Workers’ Museum) is located in Åbøbyen in Sauda, one of the best-preserved residential areas for workers and salaried staff from the development of the power-intensive industry in the country. The town, also known as Amerikanarbyen (the American Town), has good examples of neoclassical architecture from the 1920s as well as functionalist and post-war architecture. The housing area by Sauda smelting works clearly shows the social divisions: the workers’ houses lay closest to the factory, the salaried staff’s houses further up, and the director’s villa furthest up the hillside.

The museum itself is at Haakonsgata 51–53 and is housed in a former four-family house. Such houses lay closest to the factory, and up to 15 children could live with their parents in two rooms and a kitchen. The museum has two authentically furnished flats: one shows how workers lived in the 1920s, and the other has furnishings from the 1960s.

In 2019 the new exhibition “Under røyken – om livet i Åbøbyen” (Beneath the Smoke – on Life in Åbøbyen) opened. It tells of the life of the industrial workers at the factory, of being a housewife at the time and of growing up in the town, and about the factory and Åbøbyen. The museum is part of Ryfylkemuseet.

Highlights

Two authentically furnished workers’ flats from the 1920s and 1960s
The exhibition “Under røyken – om livet i Åbøbyen”
Åbøbyen, Amerikanarbyen, with neoclassical and functionalist architecture
Town walk past workers’ houses, salaried staff’s houses and the director’s villa