INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE
2020 | Building Peace through Heritage
INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE
The Prato Textile Museum
Filippo Guarini 1
1
Prato Textile Museum Director
The Museo del Tessuto is the largest cultural centre in Italy dedicated to the promotion of historical and contemporary textile production and art . The Museum was founded in 1975 within the “ Tullio Buzzi ” Industrial Technical Textile Institute , as the result of an initial donation of approximately 600 historical textile fragments made by the local entrepreneur Loriano Bertini . In 1997 , the Museum was temporarily housed in the Palazzo Comunale , while in 2003 the inauguration of the permanent premises took place in the restored spaces of the former Campolmi factory , a precious jewel of industrial archaeology situated within the old city walls . The Museum is an active member of Life Beyond Tourism Movement .
Keywords : textiles ; museum ; cultural identity
Introduction
The Textile Museum represents the productive identity of the city of Prato , an area in which the production of woolen fabrics has been attested since the beginning of the twelfth century and which has never stopped until today . The Prato district can be considered today the most important production centre of textile and of clothing companies in Europe , with over 4,000 operating companies that employ over 30,000 people .
Within this context , the Museum plays a role of testimony of the productive history of the area , but - thanks to its close relationship with many companies in the district - it is also actively engaged in representing the contemporary dimension of the sector , and its relationship with the continuous evolution of the global clothing market .
The museum ' s building
The building housing the Museum , the historic “ Cimatoria Campolmi Leopoldo e C .,” is a monument of industrial archaeology and the only large nineteenth-century factory built in the second part of the nineteenth century within Prato ’ s medieval city walls . The architectural complex constitutes the city ’ s main cultural centre and the Museum
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