Technical Museum of Slovenia Collections

In addition to food, peasant life was also marked by the making of tools. Wheelwrights and blacksmiths were very important craftsmen, indispensable for the normal functioning of society. Life back in the day could not be imagined without products made in the many blacksmith and wheelwright workshops. Blacksmiths made and repaired a wide variety of tools, made forged parts of carts, forged horseshoes and shod animals. For horseshoe blacksmiths, theoretical knowledge was not enough, they also needed rich practical experience, as their job was challenging, multi- disciplinary and complex. As a rule, blacksmiths gained valuable experience in long years of apprenticeship; between 1850 and 1962 there was also an official blacksmith school in Ljubljana.
The most valuable product of the wheelwright was indisputably the wooden wheel. Nevertheless, they also made wooden parts of various vehicles – carts, carriages, sleighs and skis, and in the early 20th century even wooden parts of the car body shell. The wheelwright and blacksmith workshops used to be closely connected in the past.
The wheelwright would take care of the wooden parts of the cart and the blacksmith of the metal ones. Their workshops were hence often next door to each other or even under the same roof; this is why we chose to present them together in the museum as well. Here you can not only see reconstructed workshops, but also learn about the historical development and the immense importance of the trade. We have prepared a few short films so you can see what their work used to look like and get an impression of what these craftsmen were actually doing.
The wheelwright collection is enriched by the overview of development and constituent parts of the carriages in Slovene agricultural industry.