Écomusée de Saint-Nazaire, Maritime heritage museum in Saint-Nazaire, France.
The Écomusée de Saint-Nazaire occupies a building on Avenue de Saint-Hubert, on the autonomous port of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire facing the Chantiers de l'Atlantique. Its permanent exhibition, "Mémoire d'Estuaire", covers 550 m² and follows the city's history from prehistory to the present, with ship models including the Normandie (1935) and the France (1962), wind-tunnel models of 1930s Loire Aviation seaplanes, and archival films.
The museum was created to preserve Saint-Nazaire's development from harbor construction in the 19th century through the 1950s rebuilding period. The city suffered severe destruction during World War II and was then reconstructed, marking a major turning point in its history.
The exhibits show how the port and shipyards shaped daily life in the city and what role maritime work played for local people. You can see how closely residents were connected to labor on the water and how this defined their way of living.
The museum stands on the autonomous port of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire, facing the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyards. Its documentation centre, with a phototheque of 45,000 archival images, is open to the public by appointment only, for on-site consultation. The ecomuseum has also managed the Tumulus de Dissignac site since 2004.
The documentation centre holds 45,000 archival photographs of the naval and aeronautical industries, the port and the city, plus reference works and thematic files. It is open to the public by appointment only, for on-site consultation. Since 2004 the museum has also managed the Tumulus de Dissignac.
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