Visit the Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia

In the center of Terrassa, a town near Barcelona, you will find a great place to visit with children located in an Aymerich, Amat i Jover old woolen factory. This spectacular building designed by the architect Lluís Muncunill, now houses the Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia, with a saw-shaped roof, built in 1908 and sustained by 300 iron columns in a modernist style.

Within this building, visitors will find several permanent exhibits related to science and technology. One of the most attractive is “Computer’s Enigma“, which shows some of the first calculation tools used by mankind 5,000 years ago, and also the largest European computers collection of 400 computers and 200 microprocessors until the Enigma machine, a sophisticated device used by the Germans to encrypt their messages during World War II.

“Montesa Transports and motorcycle” is the name of the collection of cars, trucks, engines, aircraft, motorcycles and bicycles that is also displayed in this museum, which is probably what attracts most visitors. Walking through this permanent exhibition you will travel through the history of transport in Catalonia, with machines as prestigious as a Fairchild aircraft of 1932 or a Locomobile steam car of 1899 as well as a solar vehicle called “Despertaferro” developed at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Kids will be amazed with a Railway model with 400 lineal meters of tracks.

Another permanent exhibit is “Enérgeia” which offers the visitors practical and interactive experiences on energy, among which the Faraday cage is the most impressing, with several high-voltage electric shocks. In this part of the exhibition there are models in motion like a windmill to extract groundwater, or a life-size model of an electrical goods shop of the early twentieth century. To close the permanent exhibits there is a “L’Homo Faber”, which shows the evolution of science and technology from the Neolithic to the industrialization era and the “Human Body“, studying the body and its processes.

For more information on temporary exhibitions don’t hesitate to visit the museum website, highly recommended by ShBarcelona as you will find there hundreds of educational options.