From clay to brick

The immensely heavy wheels in the factory grind the sticky material on their noisy rounds and press the clay through the iron grates. Every second a new unbaked brick is cut out of the endless wet mass emerging from the brick presses. On production days in Lage, the fires are blazing in the ring kilns and the machines are working to full capacity.

The core of the museum is devoted to the historic factory building – once the Beermann Brickworks – on the edge of the town of Lage. The site was mechanised in 1922 but originally bricks were produced here by hand. Nowadays visitors are invited to try their hand at making bricks by pushing the clay through the iron frames on the site. In the exhibition areas they can learn more about the brick-making history and the lives of the migratory brick workers and their families in and around the Lippe region.