Hagen Open-air Museum

The museum is run by the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL, regional authority for Westphalia and Lippe within North Rhine-Westphalia).

[citation needed] As early as the 1920s, there were efforts by a group of engineers and historical preservationists to preserve technological monuments for posterity.

[citation needed] The initiator, Wilhelm Claas, even suggested the Mäckingerbach valley as a good place for a museum to that end.

The narrow valley was chosen, as wind, water and wood were the three most important location factors for industry in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Crafts and trades demonstrated at the Westphalian Open-Air Museum include ropemaking, smithing, brewing, baking, tanning, printing, milling, papermaking, etc.

Part of the open-air museum in the Mäckingerbach valley
The building housing a trip hammer used to craft scythes at the museum (the framework object in the foreground is a sculpture)
The Mäckingerbach valley seen from the upper part of the museum