Busts of Heinrich Lummel and Alois Schechtl @museum.de

There they are – the two gentlemen without whom this museum would not exist: Heinrich Lummel, a master metal roofer from Karlstadt, and Alois Schechtl, a mechanical engineer from Edling in Upper Bavaria.

Their busts are – of course – cast in bronze, because after all, we're dealing with sheet metalworkers and coppersmiths, who are real masters of metal wrangling! But that's something we'll come back to later.

First of all, let's talk about these two men and their contribution to the metal roofers' and coppersmiths' trades. Perhaps you're under the impression that such centuries-old crafts have been practised unchanged since time immemorial? Far from it!

Even metal roofers and coppersmiths move with the times. They've updated their working methods and equipment, especially since the 1970s and '80s. But what about the old machines and tools that so aptly illustrate how profitable both trades are and always have been?

"Ditch them? No way!" thought Heinrich Lummel, who, as a visionary, promoted modern technology while also being keenly aware of how traditional working methods, old machines and tools were gradually being abandoned. In short: he wanted to preserve both those techniques and the historical documents for posterity.

So in the early 1980s, he started to collect anything and everything related to the trades of the coppersmith and the sheet metalworker. Before long, he found like-minded people all over Germany, and the idea of setting up a specialist museum was born. An umbrella association linked to the two trades also became involved: the Zentralverband Sanitär-Heizung-Klima, which deals with metal works, plumbing, heating and air conditioning. And so in June 1988, a foundation was established in Karlstadt, called the "Stiftung Europäisches Klempner- und Kupferschmiede-Museum e. V." – the European Metal Roofers' and Coppersmiths' Museum Foundation.

Alois Schechtl, who was known throughout the industry for his bending and seaming machines, became the Museum Foundation's most important financial supporter. To be honest, Alois Schechtl would probably have preferred it if the museum had been built in his home town of Edling in the foothills of the Alps. But Karlstadt provided a plot of land, and the planning process began, with the architect Alfred Wiener taking the lead.

And you can see the result all around you. On the 27th of June 1998, after only five years of planning and construction, the European Metal Roofers' and Coppersmiths' Museum was officially opened to the public.