MUSEUMS OF CLASS. Windows on business stories

An innovative project promoted by the Turin Industrial Union - 2023

Presented at Scuola Holden on February 24, 2023, MUSEUMS OF CLASS. Windows on business stories is an initiative of the Industrial Union of Turin in collaboration with the Scuola Holden, Lavazza, the Regional School Office, the Department of Computer Science of the University of Turin, which has made available the civic social network FirstLife, and is with the economic support of the Chamber of Commerce of Turin.

died by Stefano Molina, Head of the School and University Area of the Unione Industriali Torino, the project envisaged the creation of an online digital platform which, for the first time, puts the exhibition sites and archives of nine companies in the metropolitan area of Turin, offering schools the possibility of integrating their educational offer and organizing visits.

The aim of the project is to promote the dialogue between school and business in an original way, encouraging the exploration by teachers and students of companies' museums and archives, true historical and cultural treasures, which tell the story of the evolution of society, the economy and customs, thus opening these places to citizenship.

Teachers will be able to draw on the web addresshttps://museidiclasse.firstlife.org, to information sheets, iconographic material, thematic insights with which to enrich the learning paths of the children, also by inserting subsequent comments, in a process of active interaction inspired by social networks.

Nine organizations have been involved so far: the Tim Historical Archive; the Heritage Hub of Fiat, Lancia and Abarth; the Italgas Heritage Lab; the Lavazza Museum; the Rai Museum of Radio and Television; the Royal Mutua Historical Museum; the Museum of Mechanics of Villar Perosa; the Leonardo di Caselle Aeronautical Industry Museum and the Chieri Textile Museum.

The Chieri Textile Museum has a peculiarity: it is not the museum of a single company but of many companies in our area: companies that no longer exist, companies that still exist, small businesses created by young people. Visiting school classes discover the permanent display of textile materials, artefacts and equipment, including historic looms - all in working order thanks to our textile mechanics and volunteer experts. Depending on the path you choose, you can access ours Archive of samples and textile designs, fashion sketches and documents of historical-artistic interest but also Textile Botanical Garden® to discover the textile and dyeing plants whose fibers and derivative dyes are exhibited in the museum together with traditional Chieri textiles, primarily moleskin and Bandera fabric. Museums like ours produce culture and allow the passion for entrepreneurial activity and know-how to be passed on to the younger generations in the name of environmental and social sustainability.

In the first half of 2023, over ten classes from various Turin schools visited the Chieri Textile Museum thanks to this complex and innovative project, which made it possible to share the resources, memories and contemporary ideas of the our reality and its context of reference.