New today
DER HEINEKEN'S BIERBROUWER
MAATSCHAPPIJ
A steam-engine dating from 1897, which
was restored completely over the past few
months, as was a compressor built in 1914.
Painstaking work by Mr. H. Voet, retired
former head of the engine-room. Both
machines are very interesting examples of
their kind, as they operate using systems
long since obsolete.
interest in preserving ordinary, everyday
articles with an eye to their value for times to
come. As one innovation follows closely on
the heels of another and with the ever-faster
modernisation of processes, it is all the more
important that the newly introduced articles
of today are preserved for tomorrow, be it
only one example of each. For many years
now Fleineken has been collecting items
used within the company for future
exhibition in a museum, which has not yet
been built. Entire brewing installations have
been put into storage, and sometimes large
shipments consisting of brewing vats, steam
engines and wooden barrel-sleighs are sent
to us for preservation. But the storerooms
do not contain only such large items.
Thousands of documents, publicity articles,
commemorative mugs and glasses, beer
mats and labels are also to be found there,
including items introduced only yesterday.
For what is new today will be old tomorrow.
Almost anything can constitute a museum
exhibit, so hardly anything is thrown away.
And the preserved items are put to good
use. On countless occasions the publicity
department has asked us for the loan of
articles from the many, many storerooms.
Posters are a highly popular item and
thankfully we have saved a number of them.
Letterheads, carefully stored away, were
used a couple of years ago in a television
commercial. Pictures of old trucks are kept,
not only for the light they cast on
Heineken's past but also for the many
enthusiastic admirers of old vehicles wishing
to trace the early history of the transport
industry. Our aim in writing about this
future Fleineken museum is to make our
readers aware of the historic value of every
article connected with a company. Once
something is thrown away it is gone for ever,
and an important link with the past may
have been lost. But is is not only the tangible
items such as documents and photographs
which are valuable mementoes. What about
the memories of former employees, their
reminiscences of times gone by? We
sometimes visit them and get them to tell
their stories. These are then written down
and filed away for the benefit of future
generations who otherwise might not have
the faintest idea of how things were done
when their great-grandfathers were at work.
Just a part of the storerooms for small
museum articles. Bulkier objects are stored
in a big warehouse.
AMSTERDAM - ROTTERDAM
Dating from early this century, this is one of
the oldest posters that Heineken still
posseses. It depicts the breweries in
Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The former
brewery was completely demolished a few
years ago, whilst the interior and exterior of
the Amsterdam brewery is now completely
modernized.
In today's society there is a growing
tendency for people to discard things
without giving them a second thought. The
outcome is that very little is kept for future
generations. We are not talking here about
works of art, but about everyday items like
documents, implements, machinery used by
commercial firms. Such goods have been
thrown away and dumped by the lorryload
on rubbish tips and have thus vanished for
ever because they were considered obsolete
or of absolutely no value or simply because
they got in the way. Though works of art - or
what people think to be such - have been
collected and cherished for centuries, it was
not until the second half of the present
century that people started to take an
a i: k ivt old tomorrow
AGENT
7)1 JU ry O For a long time Mr. P. Baggerman was a Heineken agent in Haarlem
'n Irl FN P|J and> Fy courtesy of his widow, the signboard which he displayed outside
his business premises for many years came into our possession, along
with a splendid drinking-horn. The signboard is far from in a perfect state,
but that's no reason for discarding it, as signs like this are hardly made any more.
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