The Network of Ethnographic Museums of Asturias was set up in 2001, at the request of the Regional Ministry for Culture and Tourism of the Principality of Asturias. The Network aims at coordinating the management of the collections, the dissemination, research and training in the existing museums of Asturias.
Muséu del Pueblu d'Asturies
PRESERVATION AND TRANSMISSION OF THE HISTORICAL MEMORY OF THE ASTURIANS
Region-wide based museum whose aim is to preserve the memory of the people of Asturias. It was founded in 1969 by the City Council of Gijón and it has important collections of ethnographic materials, traditional music instruments, ancient photographs, testimonies of oral memory and traditional music, graphic arts and written documents either personal, commercial and of rural industries.
Casa Natal del Marqués de Sargadelos
THE INHERITANCE OF A ENLIGHTENED IN WESTERN ASTURIAS
The museum is located in Ferreirela de Baxo (Santalla de Ozcos) at the birthplace of Antonio Raimundo Ibáñez, Marquis of Sargadelos (1749-1809). It is devoted to the life and work of this well educated man, also industrialist and businessman who, at the end of the XVIII c. built in Sargadelos (Cervo, Lugo) one of the first factories in Spain for cast iron and china.
Museo Etnográfico de Grandas de Salime
A LIVING MUSEUM IN WESTERN ASTURIAS
Opened in 1984, the museum is located in Grandas de Salime, a small town of 640 inhabitants, capital of a 114 km2 county with 1.400 inhabitants. José María Naveiras Escanlar had the idea of a museum to gather and show tools, machines and implements of rural life present in Eastern Asturias.
Museo Etnográfico Juan Pérez Villamil
LIFE AT SEA, COUNTRYSIDE AND EMIGRATION
The ethnographic museum Juan Pérez Villamil, situated in the maritime village of Puerto de Vega, county of Navia, was opened in September 2001. The History Friends Cultural Association took the initiative. It was meant as a homage to mariners, peasants an emigrants.
Museo Vaqueiro de Asturias
SEASONAL MIGRATION AS A WAY TO LIFE
Opened the 29th July 2000 in Naraval (Tineo), the initiative was taken by the Conde de Campomanes Cultural Association, from Tineo and finally created and managed by the Manxelón Cultural Association. Objective: to study and preserve the testimonies related to the vaqueiros de alzada, social group of seasonal migrating cattle-raisers who move in summer from the village to the high pastures or brañas.
Ecomuseo de Somiedo
TRADITIONAL CRAFTS AND VEGETAL COVERED CONSTRUCTIONS
The Somiedo ecomuseum aims to further the understanding of every ethnographic element (from a basket to a braña) that belongs and sustains a rural culture trending to disappear though still present in the villages and the landscape of Somiedo.
Museo Etnográfico de Grado
HULLED WHEAT AND BREAD TRADITION
The museum displays the traditional culture corresponding to several central Asturian counties. It was created in 1982 by the Town Council of Grado, since 1995 the permanent exhibition is placed in the factory premises of La Cardosa, 500 m from the main square of Grado. The municipal arts centre (Miranda Valcarzana Palace) houses temporary exhibitions and a sample of the cider making with a big weight press (llagar) to press the magaya (apple flesh).
Museo Etnográfico de Quirós
LIVING IN ASTURIAN MOUNTAIN VILLAGES
The deep changes undergone by rural communities from late XIX century, forced the abandon of many essential tools and equipment. The need to preserve these elements, in fact people’s history, encouraged the Town Council of Quirós and the Consejería of Education and Culture from the Government of the Principality of Asturias, to create this ethnographic museum that exhibits and reproduces the way of life, equipment (preseos), and machinery widely used in these mountain villages, keeping all the value and respect they deserve.
Muséu Etnográficu de la Llechería
MILK, CHEESE AND BUTTER IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETY
The museum is in La Foz de Morcín, 15 km from Oviedo. In 1990, the Commission organizing the Certamen de Quesu d’Afuega’l Pitu proposed it. In 1993 the City Council of Morcín and the Association called Hermandad de La Probe set up the Association “Friends of the Cheese” that starts to search and recover different objects, and develops an important investigative work.
Museo Marítimo de Asturias
MAN AND SEA, FISHING AND SAILING
Founded in 1948 by the City Council of Gozón, it stands for the doyen of Asturian museums. It is an open and world-wide museum, dedicated to the maritime culture, mainly Asturian and Cantabrian, interesting and entertaining thanks to its wide range of objects.
Museo de la Sidra de Asturias
CIDER: FOR ASTURIANS SOMETHING MORE THAN A DRINK
Placed in the village of Nava, 30 kilometres from Oviedo, its main objective is to get people to know and to promote this drink characteristic of Asturias. The exhibition is far from the traditional idea of a museum with the exhibition of pieces ordered following thematic or typological criterion. The museum challenges visitors to take an active role. Thus through a surrounding exposing system, it aims to transmit all the possible information in relation to the production, the consumption and the history of the cider.
Museo de la Madera de Caso
FORESTS AS RAW MATERIAL FOR THE ASTURIANS
The municipal government of Caso opened the Caso wood museum in December 2001. It is seated in Veneros, in a sixteenth century casona (typical Asturian large house). The museum displays a thematic exhibition in which the importance of the wood in the traditional Asturian society is shown, with special attention to the footwear made with this material: the wooden-shoe (madreña).
Museo de la Escuela Rural de Asturias
A JOURNEY INTO THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN ASTURIAS
The museum is situated in the village of Viñón, Cabranes, seven kilometres from Villaviciosa and fifteen from Nava. The building was designed by the provincial architect Javier Aguirre Iturralde and inaugurated in 1908. It was a unitarian school for 120 students divided into two classrooms in the ground floor, one for schoolboys, one for schoolgirls.
Museo Etnográfico del Oriente de Asturias
TERRITORY, HERITAGE, COMUNITY
It has an ethnographic collection representative of the traditional life in eastern Asturias. The exposed objects are related to the same rural building where they are, and they also refer to activities developed outside the house, in its surroundings or in more far away places: the agricultural lands, the mountains, the forest, the pasture of the church in the holidays, the river, the school, the fountain.