Nicknamed the “City of a Thousand Chimneys“, Roubaix was at the beginning of the 20th century the epicenter of the textile industry in France and the first wool city in the world. 35,000 inhabitants at the start of its industrialization in 1850, 125,000 inhabitants in 1900. A meteoric rise and the decline that followed when textile production was relocated. Today Roubaix is gradually transforming its former production sites into places of creation: the walls of abandoned factories serve as artistic supports and the razed buildings give way to shared gardens.
The Factory, a former weaving factory now transformed into a museum, celebrates the ingenuity, the know-how of the often immigrant workers and the often difficult working conditions and, more broadly, the entrepreneurial spirit of all those who took part in the textile adventure. The place, the atmosphere, the noise of the machines… A sensory experience that leaves no one unmoved.
Géraldine also takes you to National Archives of the World of Work, Grand Place or even on the path of the “brick wire”.