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Floor 0

The museological course of the Permanent Exhibition starts in the Floor 0, with the Introduction: from wool to woollen manufacture, aimed to the geographical contextualisation of the wool, the wool industry, the manufacturing and business-related world.


The expositive course develops around the following guiding lines:

From manufacture to manufacture-related machines and to automation

  • World general view of the wool productive regions and the wool industrial centres
  • Wool industry evolution in the 19th and 20th centuries.
  • Raw-materials, equipments, workmanship and products
  • National general view of the wool productive regions and the wool industrial centres; social, economical, political and juridical framing of the national wool industry; from the tariff of the customhouse to the Industrial Conditioning and from EFTA to the Common Market; labour law; social protection. 

The Wool industry in Serra da Estrela Region: historic evolution 

  • The territory and the man: Serra da Estrela – wool matrix; the transhumance paths; the pasturing and the pastoral culture; a mountain industry in a region “where everything is wool and cloths”
  • Regional general view of the wool industrial centres: the cities, the most significant factories and businessmen; the industrial patrimony
  • Wool Route – TRANSLANA (included area: Beira Interior, in Portugal, and Comarca Tajo-Salor-Almonte, in Spain) 
         - The transhumance paths 
         - Manufacturing nuclei

Covilhã – Historic Centre of the Portuguese wool industry

  • Historic evolution of the industry
  • Industrial geography: Manufacturing nuclei of the Goldra, Carpinteira streams and the historic centre
  • Manufacturing architecture and constructive typologies
  • The institutions with a bigger impact in the industry development

The Royal Veiga Factory and its founders

  • The Mendes Veiga  and the cosntruction of an industrial emporium 
  • The administration of Marcelino José Ventura (1884-1891)
  • The Count of Covilhã and the business related separation

The manufacturing world – the entrepreneurs

  • Evolution and social mobility
  • Business related culture

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