EDF ELECTROPOLIS - MULHOUSE
Giant Wheel Electricity Museum of Alsace
What do you do with an old powerhouse when the technology fades? In Mulhouse, you turn it into a museum of electricity. Other old industrial buildings get torn down and the old equipment hauled away, but the power station of the DMC (Dollfus Mieg & Cie) factory in this Alsatian center of industry had a very unique piece of equipment, the BBC-Sulzer Great Engine, a 170 ton steam engine with a giant two story high flywheel which drove the current alternator. The steam engine was built in 1901 and remained in operation at the plant until 1947, when it finally stopped its old job of generating power. It remained inactive for many years until the idea came to turn it into the center stage attraction of a museum dedicated to technical and industrial heritage of the region and of France.
The EDF Electropolis Museum is the largest museum to be found in Europe focused on the story of electrical energy. With an exhibition area of 4000 square meters and a futuristic architectural setting, the EDF Electropolis Museum displays a wider range of artifacts and scale models, audio-visual projections and special exhibitions tracing the age of electricity. The original exhibit trail winds through a series of rooms covering four main themes - electricity in nature, lightning, Saint Elmo’s fire; the pioneers of electricity, Thalès de Muet, William Gilbert; worldly electricity, with the experiments with static electricity of the 18th Century, and the discoverers of the invisible electrical world, with Volta, Ampère and Faraday.
A new exhibit featuring the developments of of the 20th Century offers collections of electrical appliances, a look at the era of the great World Fairs when new technologies dazzled the public, and interactive exhibits. After the last exhibit room, you enter the power generating hall where the great wheel of the steam engine resides, turned into a theatrical multimedia show “Machine and Men” telling the story (in French) from the point of view of a working class family in Mulhouse. The pistons of the engine turn the massive wheel and the technology of a bygone age comes to life.
An outdoor walk complements the museum though a landscaped garden and two pavilions with a collection of what might be called techno-sculptures of reclaimed turbo-alternators, circuit breakers, switches, rectifiers, scale models and an 11 meter tall operating wind turbine, where can be viewed on a monitor the real time figures of the electricity generated and the amount of CO2 not being released into the atmosphere.
Visiting the EDF Electropolis Museum
The EDF is located directly across from the incredible Cite du Train (see French National Railway Museum). They are separately run, but easily combined into a journey into the wonders of the steam industrial age of massive machines. The museum is open from 10am to 6pm, except Monday and some holidays. Admission for adults is €8, youth and students, €4. Audio guides in multiple languages are available and there is a playground for kids. To get to the EDF museum and the train museum, by city bus, take lines 20 or 62 to the “Musees” stop, or by car, the museum is located off the A 36 motorway, at the "Mulhouse-Dornach" exit. © Bargain
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EDF Electropolis
See Also:
AUTO COLLECTION SCHLUMPF - MULHOUSE
KAISER WILHELM II FORT DE MUTZIG
