Parc de la Sèquia

The museum occupies the Dipòsits Vells (Old Cisterns) which collected and stored 12,000 m3 of water from the Sèquia canal and which were built by the civil engineer Marià Potó between 1861 and 1865.

The building has three identical and independent 800 m2 tanks, each covered by stone arches supported by walls and a row of arches and central pillars. The museum has two permanent exhibitions spaces:

The Sèquia and water
This exhibit demonstrates great importance of the Sèquia, a work of medieval engineering unique to Catalonia and Spain which has brought water to the city since the 14th century and has become key to the city’s and the Pla de Bages’ agricultural, industrial and urban development.

Ribbon manufacture
An extraordinary collection of machines exhibited in zones shows the evolution of the narrow textile industry from silk to the modern ribbons of the 21st century and presents the special characters of the Manresa ribbons industry within the Spanish and international markets.

Manresa, the factory city

Manresa is a crossroads of communications and exchange due to its location at the centre of a vast territory and at the confluence of two of the most industrial rivers in Catalonia – the Llobregat and the Cardener.
At the end of the 19th century it became a great industrial and commercial city, and a driving force for central Catalonia. At the turn of the century Manresa became the setting for several occurrences; the arrival of the train, the founding of financial and commercial institutions, business and social concentration and diversification, etc. All this made the city a dynamic urban centre in constant transformation.

Manresa, the factory city, with its labourers, craftsmen and entrepreneurs, became an industrial landscape and a modern luminous and elegantly designed hub around the Passeig (Boulevard), which would become the business and leisure centre and a space to show off the Modernista (Catalan Art Noveau) style.