Puerto de Sagunto Industrial Museum opens 15 October, free until the end of the year
Puerto de Sagunto opens a museum on its steelmaking past and workers' life on 15 October at 19:00, at 80 Fundición street, with no entry charge until the end of 2026.
The Industrial and Workers' Memory Museum of Puerto de Sagunto opens on Thursday 15 October at 19:00 in the former Nave Almacén de Efectos y Repuestos (a warehouse for spare parts), at 80 Fundición street. There will be an open day that same day. From Friday 16 it can be visited Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 14:00, and on Fridays and Saturdays also from 16:00 to 19:00, with free entry until 31 December 2026.
The building is part of the story it tells. The Compañía Siderúrgica del Mediterráneo (the steel company) built the warehouse in 1927 to store machine moulds and spare parts. It escaped demolition in 1984, passed to the Fundació in 1994 and was handed to Sagunto City Council in 2007 for refurbishment. The works, funded by the Valencian Government and the council, finished in 2022. The museum content was produced by Reinadecorazones Cultura de Proyectos SL, and the museum is run by the Fundació de la Comunitat Valenciana de Patrimoni Industrial i Memòria Obrera del Port de Sagunt (the heritage foundation).
The permanent exhibition fills three floors: integrated steelmaking, the factory town and workers' memory. It combines audiovisual resources, content in Valencian, Spanish and English, and audio guides and easy-read materials available free through QR codes. Items include an Ernst Leitz Wetzlar metallographic microscope from 1924, an optical level from 1918, a Siemens & Halske telephone exchange from 1921, work clothing from Altos Hornos de Vizcaya and paintings by Ricardo Gómez Gimeno. Added to these are the photographic archives of Manuel Rodríguez Velo and León San Bernardo Soler, held by Sagunto's Municipal Archive, video testimonies from the council's Historical and Democratic Memory department, and loans from seven institutions, including the Teruel Provincial Historical Archive, the Euskal Museoa and the Spanish Film Archive.
The opening comes with two temporary exhibitions on the fight against the closure of Altos Hornos del Mediterráneo (the Sagunto steelworks). La Batalla de Sagunt: 1983-1984 was curated by journalist José Manuel Rambla and photographers Provi Morillas and José Aleixandre, and is a co-production of the Colegio Mayor Rector Peset and the Vice-Rectorate for Culture and Society of the University of Valencia with the council's Historical and Democratic Memory department. Los tiempos del Puerto brings together photographs that Jorge Sáenz, an Argentine photographer exiled during the Videla dictatorship, took in Puerto de Sagunto for the workers' bulletin T-28; it is produced by the Fundació, with design by the studio FreePaella.
According to Wikipedia, Altos Hornos del Mediterráneo was set up in 1971 to run the integrated steel plant of Sagunto, successor to the Altos Hornos de Vizcaya facilities. The agreement of 4 April 1984 provided for closing the plant's head end without redundancies, and activity ceased on 5 October 1984. Today Puerto de Sagunto preserves many industrial-heritage structures, including the former Blast Furnace no. 2, an old quay and workshop buildings.
The wait has been long. According to valencianews.es, in October 2022, when the refurbishment ended, the mayor promised to open the museum in 2024, so the opening has slipped by two years. That report recalled that the original works were approved on 6 April 2011 for 1,450,360 euros under the Valencian Government's Plan Confianza, that the final contract was around 290,000 euros and that councillor Javier Raro put the investment needed to finish the unfinished works at about 300,000 euros. Valencia Plaza reported in November 2022 that the refurbishment project dates from 2009, that the works were awarded in 2011 and were halted for eight years, according to councillor Guillermo Sampedro, and that the museum still needed its exhibition fit-out. Between the approval of the works in 2011 and the 2026 opening, fifteen years pass, and 42 since the steelworks ceased activity in 1984.
The figures for the museum itself came later. In March 2025, according to valencianews.es, the council announced an investment of 400,000 euros for three floors in the north area of the building, with three themes (steelmaking, factory town and workers' struggle), audiovisual resources and accessibility measures. The Fundació's 2026 Action Plan, approved on 14 November 2025 with five votes in favour, set the museum's opening as one of its three core objectives. Its budget includes 136,000 euros from the council for the exhibition project and forecasts income of 432,500 euros, of which 430,000 are public contributions, including 190,000 euros from the council and 60,000 from the Regional Ministry of Culture for running costs.
The same plan foresees exhibitions, guided tours, talks, screenings, concerts and educational workshops. The first event will be COLADA 01, on Saturday 24 October at 19:00, with sound and audiovisual installations, interventions and performances by twelve artists and collectives, including Ameyaw, Carlos Peris, Decoder and Nacho Llopis. Pausa Zulú organises it, Vic Pereiró directs it and the council's Youth and Children department collaborates. Entry is free with an invitation, until the venue is full. The next day, Sunday 25, from 10:00 to 14:00, the six artistic projects installed in the museum can be visited free of charge.
According to aytosagunto.es and El Periódico de Aquí, with data from the Fundació's 2026 Action Plan, Wikipedia, valencianews.es and Valencia Plaza.