Travel Guide "Remembrance Connects Region Oder-Warta"

33 A h i stor i ca l ly common cultura l area A h i stor i ca l ly common cultura l area After extensive renovation works and conversion into a multi-functional communication centre and meeting place, Villa Wagener documents the industrial history of the region and symbolically represents many eras of memory. Among other things, this artistic and creative institution offers seven original studios in the field of visual arts, where workshops are held for users of almost all age groups. In 1879 , the entrepreneur Adolf Ferdi- nand Gustaph Wagener (born in 1835 in Brandenburg an der Havel) laid the foundation stone for the „A. Wagener Maschinenfabrik, Eisengießerei und Kesselschmiede, Kupfer- und Messing- warenfabrik“ (A. Wagener machine factory, iron foundry and boiler forge, copper and brass goods factory). After his death in 1894 , his two eldest sons took over the flourishing com- pany and ensured its further expan- sion and increasing prosperity. The factory in Küstrin-Neustadt, with two branches in Gdansk and Poznan, was one of the leading agricultural machi- nery companies in the Brandenburg metal industry, employing up to 400 people at peak times. Küstrin Centre for Industrial History As one of Küstrin‘s most distinctive buildings, Villa Wagener today serves visitors as a meeting place and as an art and communication centre Limestone quarrying in Rüdersdorf can now look back on a history of more than 760 years. As early as the 17 th century, the region supplied large quantities of limestone, which was needed for expanding the histo- ric fortified city of Berlin-Cölln. The Prussian king Frederick the Great promoted the expansion of mining. A separate settlement was built next to it for disabled soldiers. In the following centuries, the import- ance of the Rüdersdorf limestone continued to grow, especially in the context of the clandestine rearmament of Germany by the National Socialists in the 1930 s. The region continued to retain this significance after the end of the Second World War. The building material produced in the neighbouring cement plant was not exclusively used in Berlin, but also on numerous construction sites in the country. The standardised elements of the Berlin Wall and the inner-Ger- man border were primarily made of Rüdersdorf Museum Park The quarry and the processing plants around Rüdersdorf ensured the region‘s expansion to Berlin over the last hundred years The products included mash distilleries and potato drying facilities. One of the few surviving buildings in Küstrin/Kostrzyn not destroyed during the Second World War, Villa Wagner served as a town hall and later as a registry office after 1945 in the now Polish town of Kostrzyn nad Odrą. Rüdersdorf concrete. The intensified housing construction programme of the 1970 s also ensured steady demand for the building material, which was also in short supply in the private sector. The Museumspark Rüdersdorf (Rüdersdorf Museum Park), opened in 1994 , vividly documents the history of limestone mining in the region. In addition to former vehicles, visitors can see numerous historic buildings, such as the preserved kilns and transport facilities. Address: Kopernika 1 66 - 470 Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Polen www.dpt.kostrzyn.pl Open: Januay-December GPS : 52 ° 35 ‘ 22 . 6 “N 14 ° 39 ‘ 12 . 8 “E Küstrin Centre for Industrial History i Address: Heinitzstraße 9 15562 Rüdersdorf bei Berlin, Deutschland www.museumspark.de Open: Januay-December GPS : 52 ° 28 ‘ 35 . 0 “N 13 ° 46 ‘ 45 . 4 “E Rüdersdorf Museum Park i 32