Kiln and Ceramics Museum in Velten

The Ofen- und Keramikmuseum Velten stands in the northern outskirts of Berlin in the town of Velten, Brandenburg. The museum occupies the former factory buildings of August Schmidt, Lehmann & Co, constructed in 1899. These brick structures include a three-and-a-half-storey main building with a pitched roof, a single-storey factory hall, a boiler house with a chimney, and a transformer station on the forecourt. All are protected as part of a historic industrial ensemble. The museum traces Velten’s rise as a centre of stove-making from 1835, when local clay deposits attracted potteries. By 1903, 43 stove factories operated in the growing town. In 1905 local figures such as community leader Hermann Aurel Zieger and cantor Gustav Gericke founded the museum to preserve stove tiles, pattern books, stove models and trade literature. After wartime moves and a spell in Berlin, the collection returned in 1994 to its present home, where it forms the start of the German Clay Road. Inside, the permanent display covers 840 square metres with stoves from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Over 4,000 individual tiles, parts and decorations illustrate changing styles and techniques. Special exhibitions appear several times a year, and an energy and environment cabinet explains efficient heating. The museum also holds Europe’s largest collection of pattern books, historic photographs by Waldemar Titzenthaler, and an archive of technical records. Nearby, a separate building preserves the artistic estate of Hedwig Bollhagen, whose HB workshops once stood just 2.5 kilometres away.