The Premià de Mar Textile Printing Museum has arrived at the mid-way point of its museum project. Because of its specialism, and based on a multi-disciplinary perspective, the museum covers various aspects relating to industrial textile printing, from technology, science, art and design to those related factors that have had (and are still having) a clear impact on the economic and social history of the country.
In 2005 the museum opened the doors to the first permanent exhibition space dedicated to the origins of textile printing in Catalonia and Europe. To celebrate International Museum Day this year, it opened the second part of its permanent exhibition dealing with the science of colour based on six thematic blocks:
The processes prior to the application of the colour : details the preparation of the cloth and new discoveries related to the whitening of cotton. These processes were very labour intensive and a document from the 18 th century bears witness to the amount of manual, child labour involved.
European chemistry : places the range and expansion of the new science of colour into perspective using an illuminated pavement which the visitor follows on a tour through the principal centres of printed calico production at the end of the 18 th century.
Natural colourants : shows the natural materials most used in cloth dyeing by looking at the plants and animals from which the primary or “mother” colour was extracted, as well as displaying samples of silk, wool, lye and cotton dyed with these pigments.
Research and development : covers the discoveries surrounding artificial and synthetic colourants in a chronological history of the birth of the chemical industry in Catalonia and Europe, where the visitor will find laboratory materials, dye catalogues and an 18 th -century still.
The colour of fashion : displays textiles of a marked artistic nature, made between the 19 th and 20 th centuries, that reflect period tastes and show the transition from a limited palette of natural colourants to a much wider range of colours. This section, thus, clarifies the link between science, technology and aesthetics.
The factory environment : immerses the visitor in those spaces in the textile printing industry where the chemist and colourist created and experimented with colours. A laboratory from the year 1900 captures a snapshot of the investigating chemist, a “kitchen of colours” recreates the space where ingredients were mixed together from the colourant paste and, finally, the printing of a mould develops the basic principle of textile printing: “a mould for every colour”.
The Museum is currently working on the third and fourth phases of the permanent exhibition. The third will look at textile-printing techniques while the fourth phase will focus on art and design aspects. These areas of the exhibition –offering additional information pitched at various visitor categories– aim to bring a wide audience closer to the everyday reality of textile printing.

A selection of original designs, printed samples, catalogues and sample books is periodically renovated allowing a representative part of the Museum's archives to be put on display.