The director of the Leather Museum, Glòria Escala, gave the keynote lecture of the celebration of 70 years of history of the Igualada Leather Museum, which took place in the plenary hall of Igualada Town Hall on the afternoon of Friday 18 October. Before the lecture began, an exhibition of historical images from these seventy years of the museum was inaugurated in the Igualadiníssim space at the entrance to Igualada Town Hall. Escala began the lecture by recalling the museum’s origins, on 13 June 1954, when a section devoted to leather was inaugurated at the City Museum, at that time located in the Garcia Fossas educational centre.

Thirty years later, Igualada Town Council acquired two properties in the Rec neighbourhood, which led to the Museum moving to that area, in a clear commitment to revitalising an industrial area of the city that was in decline.

In her address, Escala also set out the future challenges at the heart of the changes that have been under way at the museum for some years now: first in the foyer, then in the museography of Cal Granotes and subsequently in the museum’s permanent exhibitions. The director of the facility explained that “we must commit to a more immersive, adapted and clear museography that also shows the current state of the leather sector’s industry in the city and its evolution over all these years”.

Along the same lines, the mayor of Igualada, Marc Castells, highlighted the Museum’s integrating and revitalising role in the Rec neighbourhood, “a facility that is the fruit of the good work of all those who have helped to create it and make it great. A museum that has become a benchmark for the city and that must now be modernised and adapted to the 21st century. With this aim we have submitted various projects and knocked on doors, and we have obtained European grants that will allow us to make significant renovation investments in our museum”.

History of the Igualada Leather Museum

In 1954, a section devoted to leather was inaugurated at the museum of the city of Igualada, located in the Garcia Fossas educational centre. This leather section was promoted by the Centre d’Estudis Comarcals d’Igualada and the Igualada Tanners’ Guild, the business association that preceded and drove the creation of Leather Cluster Barcelona.

The former Cal Granotes tannery was acquired in 1983 by Igualada Town Council, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Tanners’ Guild, and opened to the public as a museum in 1990. The Cal Boyer textile factory was purchased by Igualada Town Council with the intention of moving the Leather Museum there. Between 1986 and 1999, various Museum spaces opened in this building, as well as an auditorium and a temporary exhibition hall.

Throughout their history, Cal Granotes and the Leather Museum have established themselves as champions of industrial heritage, working in a network with Catalan museums, especially those of science and technology, and in close collaboration with Leather Cluster Barcelona. In this regard, the Igualada Leather Museum and Leather Cluster Barcelona have intensified their cluster-based cooperation in recent years with a range of activities. The museum, as the cluster’s reference member in culture and history, is an important ambassador and a key player in providing information and generating a positive current of opinion about the leather sector among the public.

The Museum today: more than 60,000 visitors to the museum each year

In 2023, 61,254 people attended the activities and events held at the museum. Of these, 34,246 made use of the Museum’s own offering: exhibitions, visits, activities, workshops and museum services.

These latest figures and its seven decades of life encourage the Leather Museum to take on new objectives and future challenges in order to make the facility a modern, social, committed and participatory museum.

Beyond housing the museum, the Cal Boyer facility has become the venue for numerous cultural initiatives that enjoy the support of Igualada’s network of associations. The Museum works to include and involve local bodies and community players so that they become protagonists and participants in culture and heritage.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector within the framework of Shared Value policies. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.