Modern printing offices may be efficient, but they are also detached. Over the past few years there has been a revival of interest in the history of printing, and a desire to experience the hands-on, craft approach to print. A growing number of museums at home and abroad have emerged to satisfy that curiosity.
So if you are an impassioned typophile, and happen to be travelling in northern Europe, here are a few must-sees.
UK
Historical Printing Room, and Museum of Technology, Cambridge
For the serious typophile I would recomment a visit to Cambridge University Library, which holds many wonderful collections – including the papers of Stanley Morison and Beatrice Warde and the archives of the Curwen and Nonesuch Presses. However, even greater treasures are to be found among the library’s considerable collection of printing artefacts, including a full-size replica of a late 18th-century wooden hand-press, an ‘Arab’ treadle-driven press, a Columbian and a copperplate printing press.
Equally important is the material from William Morris’s Kelmscott Press – the punches and matrices for his Troy, Chaucer and Golden types, and punches for Eric Gill’s Perpetua and Joanna. But, for me, the highlight has to be the wonderful 2,750 surviving Baskerville punches made by Birmingham’s famous printer in the 1750s. Tiny, silent soldiers of steel laid regimentally in their wooden cases, mute witnesses to an adventurous history.
Cambridge is, of course, bursting with other sites of bibliographic interest including the recently opened Cambridge Museum of Technology, just a short walk from the Library.
The Museum is home to a working print shop, which includes Monotype and Linotype casters, an Albion, Warfdale, Columbian, Adana and various proofing presses. And, if you want to re-awaken long-forgotten skills, you can even set a line of type and print yourself a souvenir.
IRELAND
Músaem Náisiúnta Cló [National Print Museum], Dublin
Dublin, the birthplace of James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats and Samuel Becket, is one of the literary capitals of the world. Hardly surprising, therefore, it is also home to some of the most beautiful examples of printing. No trip to the city would be complete with out a visit to the stunning Marsh’s Library – Ireland’s earliest public library – with over 25,000 examples of fine printed books; or the Distillers’ Press, part of the National College of Art & Design, open to the public by appointment; or the breathtaking Old Library in the Long Room at Trinity College with its fine collection of incunabula. But if you only have time to see one of Dublin’s typographic jewells, then it has to be the Músaem Náisiúnta Cló, which contains over 10,000 items relating to printing in Ireland from hand-setting to hot-metal, through to early computer typesetting, including artefacts relating to the newspaper industry: all in full working order. One of the higlights of the collection is a 17th-century hand-mould for casting type, another is an original 1916 Proclamation (currently on loan) along with a Wharfedale Stop Cylinder Press, similar to that used to print the first proclamation. When you have finished with the Músaem pop next door to Dublin’s oldest pub for a pint of printers ink: just don’t try to keep up with the locals!
FRANCE
Bibliothèque Forney and Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris
In France, as in the UK, the most interesting print museums are outside the metropolis. However, if you are in Paris, a visit to the Bibliothèque Forney – the collections of which include material on the French printing industry, traditional and contemporary typesetting, printing, papermaking, and engraving – will not disappoint. The Bibliothèque also has an extensive collection of trade literature and type catalogues.
Just round the corner is the Musée des Arts et Métiers with a gallery devoted to 19th-century iron printing presses, rotary presses, proofing presses, stereotypes and machine tools.
On your way to the French Alps stop over in Lyon; it is not only the gastronomic capital of the world it is also home to one of Europe’s most important printing museums. The Musée de l’imprimerie is located in the 15th-century Hôtel de la Couronne. It contains a significant collection of books, engravings, tools, technical equipment and machines relating to the history of printing. The museum displays several methods of reproduction: wood engraving, intaglio engraving, lithography, and photomechanical processes (half-tone engraving and photogravure). It also possesses a remarkable collection of engraved wood blocks from the 16th to 20th centuries. There are regular exhibitions covering all aspects of book production: drawings, engravings, lithographs, posters, and ancient and modern works of exceptional quality. There are also printing workshops especially for children.
THE NETHERLANDS
De Typografische Bibliotheek, Amsterdam
Holland boasts some of the biggest names in print’s past – Elzevir, Enschedé – unsurprising, therefore, it claims some of the best printing museums. Enhance your trip to the Dutch capital with a visit to De Typografische Bibliotheek and take a look at the Tetterode Collection, which contains a wonderful selection of 20th-century typography: the archives of Lettergieterij Amsterdam; printed ephemera such as wayzgoose-prints; and one of the largest collections in Europe of book production, distribution, and conservation. See also the Athias-chest, which contains punches and matrices from which Hebrew type was cast for more than two centuries and used to print thousands of Hebrew and Yiddish books. The Tetterode Collection also has some beautiful prints demonstrating a large variety of illustration and reproduction techniques and pictures from type-foundries and printing establishments.
Haarlem is just 20km west of Amsterdam with a beautiful 16th- and 17th-century town centre and several museums. The firm of Joh. Enschedé has been in existence for almost three centuries. Located in the premises of Enschedé‘s Haarlem division it contains the history of the foundry. Its main collections comprise the firm’s archives; punches and matrices of the typefoundry; archives of the Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant; the banknote collection; and the filatelic collections. All date from the beginning of the 18th century.
BELGIUM
Plantin-Moretus Museum and Dagbladmusem, Antwerp
For many years Antwerp was the focal point for 16th-century fine book printing: a fact reflected by the city’s two printing museums. South of the Grote Markt is the city’s oldest residential district, and close to the Vrijdagmarkt Square is the marvellous Plantin-Moretus Museum, one of the most celebrated museums in Antwerp. It is a 16th-century patrician house set around a courtyard, with original furnishings and the workshops and book collection of Christopher Plantin, one of the great masters of early printing. The Officina Plantiniana was the most famous printing works in Europe. The typefoundry, workshop, type store, correctors’ room and bookshop are still intact and preserved as they were in the 16th and 17th centuries. The type foundry includes 15,825 moulds and 4,477 punches capable of printing eighty different founts all in working order. There are 2,846 copperplates and 13,791 woodblocks. The workshop houses eight 17th- and 18th-century presses, the oldest of which date from around 1600. The building is magnificent and the collection is imposing as it represents 300 years of typographic work.
Also in Antwerp is the Dagbladmusem [Press Museum], which is located in the former home of Abraham Verhoeven an engraver, printer and journalist. In 1605, Verhoeven started printing the Niewe Tydinjhen from his home, one of the world’s first printed newspapers. The museum has the largest and most diverse newspaper collection in the world. The collection exceeds two million examples that come from more than 120 countries. Among the curiosities are the biggest newspaper: The Constellation (US, 1859); and the smallest newspaper: Utrecht’s Nieuwsblad (Netherlands, 1845). In addition there is a selection of printing and binding equipment and various composing machines.
GERMANY
Mainz is the birthplace of moveable type and home to the Gutenberg-Museum. Adjoining the colourful Markt and a little to its east is Liebfrauenplatz. On the north side of the platz is the magnificent pink renaissance façade of the Hans zum Römischen Kaiser, which houses the offices of the Gutenberg-Museum. The actual displays are in a modern extension behind. The Gutenberg-Museum has been enlarged and extended over several decades; it was expanded once more for the 600th anniversary of the birth of Gutenberg in 2000 when he was also voted ‘man of the millennium’. Visitors to the museum can see a modern recreation of Gutenberg’s workshop and printing machines and watch occasional demonstrations taking place. On display are examples from Gutenberg’s workshop including the famous 42-line bible from the 1450s as well as illuminated manuscripts, wooden book-blocks, book covers and historic presses. Elsewhere in the museum there are displays of books from around the world.
Augsburg is 220km south-east of Mainz and it is where you will find the MAN Corporation. MAN has its own museum about its contribution to the development of printing machines and the firms other interest, diesel engines.
The museum displays both originals and reconstructions of historical printing machines and components. Two of the original exhibits are particularly worth mentioning: a hand-operated high-speed printing machine from 1846 and the first attempt at a diesel engine that was built between 1893 and 1895. There are many pictures and photographs of the MAN enterprise, Rudolf Diesel, and the building of printing machines.
Stiftung Werkstattmuseum für Druckkunst (Museum of the Printing Arts), Leipzig
Stiftung Werkstattmuseum für Druckkunst is one of the most recent printing museums, having been established in 1999. With its collection of around 100 working historical printing machines spanning the centuries, coupled with equipment for both hand composition and hot-metal typesetting, the museum really brings the history of printing alive. Part museum and part active workshop, visitors can experience hands-on printing processes for themselves. The museum also covers some of the allied trades with a fully equipped handcraft bookbindery, a workshop of a wood engraver and a unique collection of more than 4,000 different typefaces both roman and exotic, from Europe and the Far East. The museum is located in the former industrial quarter of Plagwitz in a listed industrial building that has been in continuous use as a printing house since the early 20th century.
OTHER OPTIONS
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre, Sussex
Amberley Museum is a living museum dedicated to the industrial heritage of the South East, which is set in a 36-acre site set in the South Downs National Park. Among its many exhibits is a fully-functioning printing workshop. Run by a band of enthusiastic volunteers, each of them skilled in the traditional crafts of printing, there is much to see, including the recently-restored Linotypes, a treadle platen, a common or wooden press, Adanas and a Columbia Press. Visitors can watch demonstrations of the Linotype, Ludlow and Elrod machines, but are also welcome to try setting a ‘line-o-type’ for themselves and pulling a proof on an Adana. Don’t miss their upcoming Printing and Machine Shop weekend on 13-14 June.
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre (www.amberleymuseum.co.uk), Houghton Bridge, Arundel, West Sussex BN18 9LT
Wherever you end up this summer, perhaps you can be tempted to dip your toe in a little of print’s past!
