Museum history

The MuCa (Museo della Cantieristica di Monfalcone – Monfalcone Shipbuilding Museum) is the only Italian museum dedicated to shipbuilding: opened in 2017 and located in the former Albergo Operai in the village of Panzano, it shows over a century of history. The museum’s exhibition itinerary covers several themes: the city-factory, corporate welfare and wars, the shipyard and entrepreneurs: the evolution of the territory, technology and construction in the shipyard: from ships to collateral productions, interior design and great art on ships and in the territory. Technology and multimedia allow the museum to tell its story from local history, through construction techniques to ship design and an important collection of 20th century art (including Mušič, Mascherini, Timmel). Thanks to the innovative multimedia systems used, visitors are taken into an immersive reality, characterised by a sensory tunnel, a crane simulator and other augmented reality and 3D reconstruction stations, which make the tour interesting for visitors of all ages.

A recommended tour guides the visitor to the museum; another, in parallel, directs the visitor to the building itself and to the discovery of the original function of the hotel for workers.
A succession of corridors and shadowy spaces, passages through sheet metal, sparkles, sounds and noises ‘from the construction site’ make an almost real experience.

The MuCa is a widespread museum, which directly involves the territory, not only with the route inside the museum, but also with a series of external itineraries in the village of Panzano and guided tours inside the Fincantieri shipyard where some of the largest cruise ships under construction can be admired.

The City Administration had long had the intention of creating a museum to tell its own public version of such a peculiar region and production district – a unique example of the large shipyards in the north-east of Italy, considering the remarkable historical importance of the workers’ district that was built around the yard, a meaningful example of a planned community during the industrial revolution.