The half-height building to the right of the chimney is the former drying house. In this building, the shoe lasts were prepared in advance of production. Halfway between the warehouse and the production room, the dried pieces of rough wood ended up in the "pre-production" area. Here, they were roughly shaped before they could be worked into an exact fit. Nowadays, lasts are no longer made out of wood, so there is no need to store, dry out, and prepare cuts of wood. Where the drying chambers once stood and milling machines once hummed, 40 engineers now work on the development of high-performance technologies. In their bright and cheery offices, they are developing measurement and fire-prevention techniques, which have meanwhile become the core business area for Fagus-GreCon.
To the left of the drying house stands the tall, white, plastered warehouse. The timber that was delivered would have been divided up in the saw mill, then transferred to the warehouse, where it would dry out for one and a half years and be further prepared from there.
Nowadays, it houses the Fagus-Gropius exhibit. Over five floors, it tells the history of the Fagus Factory and its employees, and of the business and its products—all based around the theme of shoes.
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