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Museum of the Miner’s House, Eisden

The mining site of Eisden is actually the remarkable outcome of one hundred years of struggle to improve workers’ housing, and an indirect result of the late 19th-century English ‘garden city’ movement. The mining company did not build these spacious houses out of pure charity, however: their aim was to attract the best miners and to win their lifelong loyalty to the company. The Museum and the town’s archives vividly represent the domestic life of local miners in the early 20th century. Built in 1925, the house was first inhabited by two Slovenian families. Later it was converted into an infant care centre, then again into emergency classrooms, and finally into a chaplain’s house. Today, this house is known in the region for being the most successful project in raising the historical awareness of the inhabitants and neighbours about the meaning of this exceptional residential area. The Museum was created in 1989 as the result of an initiative by a few local heritage institutions and with the participation of the local heritage community, who believed that although miners do not usually grow to be very old, their lives and history should not be forgotten. Furthermore, as an ‘eco-museum’ in the original sense of the term, the Museum offers a statement against and an alternative to the cluttering of the area with wild construction developments, seeking instead to preserve some of the neighbourhood’s authentic character. BvD