The Whaling Industry Museum, formerly Fábrica da Baleia Armações Baleeiras Reunidas, Lda, in São Roque do Pico, is the first public industrial museum in the Azores. The Sociedade das Armações Baleeiras Reunidas, Lda, established in 1942, articulated two production systems: whale fishing (sperm whale) and the production of its derivatives, as well as its respective commercialization. This factory unit, the largest and most important sperm whale processing complex in the Azores, which operated between 1946 and 1984, is an industrial building with a total area of about 1200m2.
The Whaling Industry Museum comprises the following built complex:
1. Whale Factory;
2. Blacksmith-foundry and locksmith-turnery building;
3. Old Carpentry Building, reconverted into a Temporary Exhibition Gallery;
4. Bus garage building, adapted to reserves and workshop;
5. Toilet;
6. Interior square and public memorial;
7. Chimney;
8. Winches and meat mill, located outside;
9. Cutting yard and sperm whale ramp;
10. Whale oil tanks.
The main building – the Factory – where the technical process of producing oil, flour, fertilizers and vitamins from the processing of bacon, meat, bones and sperm livers once took place, consists of the following equipment: two boilers; four bacon autoclaves; two meat and bone autoclaves; bacon hauling winches; two fuel tanks; two meat and bone dryers; one press; one liver mill; three liver autoclaves; an oil centrifuge; a power plant, with two generators; a refrigerator; a truck; a flour mill; equipment for sieving, weighing, and bagging flour; underground whale oil tanks; pumps for transferring oil, and pipeline pipes.
The Whaling Industry Museum is, therefore, an industrial archaeology museum. Ethnographic in nature are the objects of cutting and cutting / quartering of sperm whales, documentation on the activity of the Factory, photographs related to whaling and the Port of São Roque do Pico, as well as miniatures of sperm whales and whaling vessels. This industrial musealization – “in situ” -, enhanced by urban and landscape requalification works, assumes itself as a strategic instrument for the integrated development of the County, capable of contributing decisively to its cultural and identity promotion, at a local, regional and national scale.
Info and photos from: Link
