The Old Ironworks

The Old Ironworks is one of the few authentic industrial complexes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Slovenia within a preserved historical ironworking and steelmaking industrial area. The historical area encompasses 5,000 m2 and was declared a cultural monument in 1994. It comprises a forge, an apartment building for factory workers, and a factory laboratory. Right next to it is the Church of St. Anthony, adjacent to which there was a cemetery between 1861 and 1964. SIJ Metal Ravne, then called Metal Ravne d.o.o., gratuitously transferred ownership of the three historical buildings that comprise the Old Ironworks to the Municipality of Ravne in 2002 so that it could serve as a museum showcasing the development of the steel industry in the Koroška region. The edging forge, known as the štauharija, was built during the First World War. When production in the building was discontinued, the space became available for a museum collection and an interpretive presentation of the steelmaking tradition. The preserved machinery and devices are an important part of the built and technical steelmaking heritage of Koroška. The štauharija houses the permanent exhibitions Shining Steel – 400 Years of Steelworking in the Meža Valley, The Mother Factory – Ravne Ironworks, and Treasures of the Foundries. The perzonal is a dormitory for factory workers built between 1870 and 1875. The exterior of the two-storey building is preserved in its original form. In the 1950s, the apartments were turned into offices. There was a first aid clinic on the ground floor and offices for various administrative services on the upper floor. The laboratory for chemical analyses of steel was built after the First World War. In the 1970s it was relocated to the new Technological Control Unit building.