Industriemuseum Lauf, Industrial heritage museum in Lauf an der Pegnitz, Germany
The Industriemuseum Lauf is a museum complex in historic buildings showcasing machinery, workshops, and living quarters from the late 1800s through 1970. The site includes several protected structures with water-powered facilities and recreated production areas that show how goods were made and how workers lived.
The museum occupies a historic trades and industry quarter below Lauf's old town, with some buildings dating back to the 16th century. It opened in 1992 in four buildings and was expanded in 2008 with ten buildings of the former Dietz & Pfriem valve factory. The complex, including original fittings, is a protected industrial monument.
The preserved workshops show how craft and small-scale industrial work shaped daily life and community. Walking through, you see a barber shop, shoemaker, umbrella maker, and other trades that reveal how people earned their living before mass production changed everything.
You can explore the site at your own pace using multimedia guides on handheld devices to learn about each area. Interactive stations are set up throughout, especially for children, to give hands-on experience with how these processes and trades worked.
The museum's youngest building, the "Wasserbau" of the valve factory, went up in 1936/37 and has not been altered since, so it shows the factory as it stood in the 1930s. The whole complex, original fittings included, is a protected industrial monument in Bavaria.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,628 contributors worldwide.
