Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Mezin cork and cork museum, located in the south-west of Lot-et-Garonne, bears witness to the economic importance of cork in the region since the 18th century. The town, on the edge of the forest of the Landes de Gascogne, experienced an industrial boom linked to the manufacture of corks, with up to 35 corks in 1906. The museum, created in 1983 in an old disused school, presents machines and tools collected since the 1970s, covering 80 years of activity (1870-1950). The cork, formerly from the local quercus suber, was then imported from Kabylie, Spain and Portugal after the disappearance of the Dutch oak trees in the 19th century.

In 1994, the creation of a departmental conservation of the heritage revived the museum project. The current museum, restructured between 1996 and 1999, benefits from a strengthened scientific approach (ethnological studies, inventories) and professionalisation of its team. Labelled Musée de France in 2006, he saw his attendance increase from 3,000 to 7,600 visitors between 1998 and 2005. Its collections, composed of 87 objects and machines, were enriched in 2009 by the donation of 7 machines from the 1980s, from the last local cork factory, the SARL Giraud.

The museum is part of national and European networks, working with the Musée des arts et métiers (Paris) since 2010 through a partnership agreement. It joins the Réseau des Musées et collections techniques de France (RéMut) and initiates projects to enhance industrial heritage, such as raising cork oak bark with the association Le Liège gascon. These actions aim to preserve the memory of declining know-how, while energizing cultural tourism in this medieval rural city of 1,500 inhabitants.

Today, the Lot-et-Garonne still has 4 cork processing companies (60 jobs), compared with a hundred at the beginning of the 20th century. The museum, carried by the municipality and the Mézinais Historical and Cultural Association, continues to document this history through exchanges with contemporary industrial actors and heritage institutions, such as the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.

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