Ethnological Collection in Kasarna, Jesenice
History
The two-storey late Baroque building has three entrances and presents one of the earliest examples in the inner Austrian territory of multi-residential housing for workers. Together with other objects at Stara Sava it forms the entirety of the Bucelleni Ruard Manor, first established in the 16th century.
In Stara Sava one can also see the Bucellini-Ruard Mansion, remnants of the blast furnace and puddling mill, the little ironworks' Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Roch, chimney, mill, and part of the concrete water trough. The complex is protected as a technical monument.
Collections
A family had the right to live in the Kasarna if one of its members was employed in the iron forge. On average, 15 families lived in the building, sharing the kitchen, toilets, entrance hall, woodshed, and other common spaces. The kitchen and a room of the workers' dwelling reflect life in the 1930s and 1940s. Using characteristic wooden furniture with ornaments in the bedroom and period kitchen equipment including a built-in wall range, grid iron, coffee grinding-mill and other implements, the life of an iron-workers' family is authentically documented.
The building houses also a small photo gallery, the historic archives of the Kranjska industrijska družba (Kranj Industrial Society), or KID, established in 1869 as a means to building capital to establish the railroads, the Jesenice Music School, and a venue for temporary exhibitions and various performances: workshops, summer nights, movie, theatre and music shows.
See also
- Upper Sava Valley Museum, Jesenice
- Iron-making, Mining and Palaeontologic Collection in Bucellini-Ruard Mansion, Jesenice in Stara Sava