Haslach Textile Center

The Textile Center Haslach is a cooperation of five partners, which is home to a revitalized industrial and economic historical monument on the area of the former Vonwiller textile factory and the adjoining area of the former Obermüller textile factory in Haslach an der Mühl / Upper Austria . Partners of the cooperation are the weaving museum, the Textile Kultur Haslach association , the Haslach manufactory , the shuttle of the university in Linz and the weaving workshop .

The property is owned by the municipality of Haslach an der Mühl via a special purpose vehicle, and the “Culture in the Factory” association, founded in 2003, acts as the sponsoring association. There is also a municipal technology and service center, a music school and two event halls on the site.

The Vonwiller textile factory is a listed building .

Vonwiller textile factory

The Milanese business family Vonwiller with Swiss roots bought Mühlviertler canvas at the Haslach weekly market in order to sell it in Italy and decided in 1819 or 1833 to build a factory directly in the Haslach market “on the foundations of eight town houses and buy the goods they needed with the cheap, but to let experienced Mühlviertel workers produce it themselves ”. The Milanese banker Nikolaus Vonwiller represented the trading family. The fabrics produced, including jacquard fabrics , were of high quality and were exported worldwide towards the end of the 19th century. The architecturally interesting factory complex has dominated the Haslach townscape since it was built and is a landmark for the importance of the weaving mill for life in this place at the time. After economic ups and downs, the factory, which was run as the linen and cotton factory Vonwiller GmbH, was finally closed in 1998. In 1999 the municipality of Haslach bought the industrial ruin in the middle of the village.

The social and economic structure in the village and in the region was influenced by the factory: Formerly independent linen weavers entered the service of the factory owner, who soon after the company was founded employed hundreds of people. In addition to the weaving mills, which were organized in small and medium-sized enterprises or were still completely involved in the domestic industry , a factory was built where the associated processes and hierarchies brought with them a completely new form of work.

In the beginning, classic linen fabrics were made on hand looms , with the factory workers also employing home weavers who worked for Vonwiller in the publishing house . In 1854 Vonwiller was the first weaving mill in the Mühlviertel to use mechanical looms and begin processing cotton and silk into intricately patterned jacquard fabrics. The fabrics produced in this way were used in men's vests (gilets) in the fashion of the time and were the reason for the company's national reputation, which can be seen from the company's trade records and sample books that still exist.

Colored weaving mill Obermüller

The weaving company, founded in the 1920s, specialized in the production of colorful woven goods and was taken over by a textile factory in Traberg in 2001 . The area has belonged to the Haslach community since 2006.

Haslach Textile Center

In order to prevent an industrial ruin from permanently shaping the townscape of Haslach, the municipality of Haslach acquired the entire Vonwiller factory area in 1999 and the adjacent Obermüller area in 2006, thus laying the foundation for further development.

Supported by the idea of merging various institutions with a textile focus under one roof to generate a variety of synergies, the dilapidated buildings were revitalized, connecting structures erected and the rooms adapted for the intended purposes.

Haslach weaving museum

The Haslach Weaving Museum, founded in 1971 and re-presented in 2012 in the Haslach Textile Center, shows the processing steps from flax processing to the finished canvas as well as the development of hand looms through to jacquard weaving machines , enables discussion of economic issues, provides information on the technical weaving processing of modern materials and provides Insight into the sample collections of the Vonwiller textile factory. Individual historical devices and weaving machines from the 19th and 20th centuries are put into operation as part of guided tours.

Textile culture Haslach

The Textile Kultur Haslach Association was founded in 1991 and has been offering workshops, experimental workshops and special exhibitions to promote textile art and culture in the Haslach Textile Center since 2012. As part of an annual summer symposium , courses are held on all aspects of hand-loom weaving and various textile techniques and design processes are taught. Every year in July, the association organizes the Haslach weavers' market, which can refer to a Europe-wide group of exhibitors and appeals to both the specialist audience and the regional population.

Haslach manufactory

The Haslach Manufactory is a socio-economic company founded in 1990 that deals with the processing of wool supplied by regional sheep farmers and has been located on the site of the former Mühlviertel colored weaving mill Johann Obermüller since 1997. During the revitalization work on the desolate buildings that were bought by the municipality of Haslach, the operation was outsourced, the reopening as part of the Textile Center Haslach took place in September 2008. The wool processed there is of course a renewable raw material from Mühlviertel Merino sheep and other Central European sheep Sheep breeds. Produced yarns , fabrics and felts , where great value is placed on a continuous transparent chain. Visitors to the Haslach Textile Center have the opportunity to experience the ongoing manufacturing process, from raw wool to the finished product. In addition to specialist staff, twelve people with disabilities are employed and trained. The company has two dobby looms (for lattice fabrics) as well as one jacquard loom each (for patterned fabrics) and one terry loom for training purposes and for small-scale production. The machines were taken over from the former Haslach textile school and are also used for shuttle courses and by the weaving mill, as well as being demonstrated on guided tours.

Shuttle

Shuttle is a university course planned for the first time in October 2013 in the premises of the Textile Center Haslach in cooperation with the University for Artistic and Industrial Design Linz for innovative weaving culture and consists on the one hand of a one-year course and on the other hand of advanced training seminars in the weaving department, with the focus on Further training is based on the creation of an interface between machine production and design and both people with artistic and technical training should be addressed. The pilot phase in the form of a taster course with international participation took place in April 2011.

Weberie

The Weberie is a functional weaving mill equipped with modern weaving machines, where work is being carried out on an in-house product line that is sold in the shop of the Textile Center Haslach. The infrastructure is available to external clients and the in-house cooperation partners to develop high-quality fabrics and textile concepts and to produce them in small series.