1988 was a very important year in the history of the museum.

This was the year when the Graphic Workers’ Union in Helsingborg celebrated its 100th anniversary and the Types, Printing and Typographers exhibition, produced by Riksutställningar (Swedish Travelling Exhibitions), was held in the old rectory at Fredriksdal Museums and Gardens. The exhibition, originally designed by Göran Carlsson, was adapted to the rectory premises by Henri Paul Amat. Other printing equipment and exhibits, borrowed from local printers and from the printing department at Rönnowska School, broadened the scope of the exhibition.

Bertil Hagberg, then a typographer, and Stig Wall, a shop steward, were in charge of this part of the Union’s jubilee celebrations. It was also their idea to man the working parts of the exhibition. The five oldest printing works in Helsingborg were invited to participate in the exhibition, held in the summer of 1988: Allers, Bergstens Tryckeri, Helsingborgs Dagblad, Helsingborgs Litografiska Anstalt and Schmidts Boktryckeri took part under the guidance of Gideon Beil.

An impressive number of volunteer printers, both employed and retired, were prepared to man the machines and equipment. The result of these combined efforts was an incredibly well-attended jubilee exhibition – with working exhibits. The exhibition was in operation daily and visitors were introduced to the glorious smell of printing ink!

In September 1988, the travelling exhibition moved on and the rectory fell quiet. However, new plans were being made; traditional craftsmanship needed to be preserved, there were still warm and pleasant memories of the comradeship of the summer months and all the attention that the working part of the exhibition had received. A simple question was put those who had taken part and contributed to the success of the exhibition: “Would you be willing to continue your support, if we built a proper printing museum?” Bertil and Gideon, who had resumed contact in order to promote the idea, received a resounding answer: “Yes, definitely!”

Boosted by this strong and vitally important answer they could then proceed, contacting once more Henri Paul Amat at Riksutställningar who gave his full support to the enthusiastic plans. A solution was soon found by which the Types, Printing and Typographers exhibition could return to Helsingborg and find a permanent home.

A temporary working committee, with Bertil Hagberg as chairman, was formed. Its aim was to create a printing museum in Helsingborg. And it was only natural that the first committee included representatives of the Graphic Workers’ Union, Allers, Bergstens Tryckeri, Helsingborgs Dagblad, Helsingborgs Litografiska Anstalt, Schmidts Boktryckeri, Grafiska Kretsföreningen and Helsingborg Museum.

The town’s Cultural Committee was approached in 1989 and after a number of discussions it was decided that Helsingborg would become home to a new printing museum. It was to be housed, subject to a three-year lease, in the rectory at Fredriksdal Museums and Gardens.

Work then began to obtain unwanted printing equipment and associated fixtures and fittings to complement the exhibition and to establish the working part of the museum. Numerous printing works donated typesetting machines and printing presses as well as other equipment and important documents. Other donations were received from numerous sources and the scope and number of the museum’s artefacts grew rapidly.

On Saturday, 27 April 1990 the museum was ceremoniously inaugurated. The whole museum was manned and crowds of visitors poured in all day. The artist Lennart Rosensohn, who had donated a lithographic press, and master lithographer Stig Wall created a special lithographic print on the opening day.

And what happened next?

The museum flourished, more donations were made, and the numbers of visitors reached new heights – thousands came, especially schoolchildren, eager to absorb the history of the printed word. Three years is not a very long time but, during this initial period, the Printing Museum became an institution to be reckoned with amongst the town’s museums, no doubt thanks to its live activities, which form the core of the museum’s work. More than 50 volunteers were now helping to man the museum.

We realized that the museum had to live on after these first three years, but in different and larger premises. The town was approached once again and Helsingborg Printing Museum itself promised to raise one million crowns towards the construction of a new building for the museum.

After a long period of discussions, the town council decided in the autumn of 1993 to allocate money from the Dunker Foundation for the establishment of a printing museum, to be housed in its own building at Fredriksdal Museums and Gardens.

A few words should be said about the design of the building. Curator Karin Ohlsson, a member of the building project team, produced the original drawings for a building that had previously housed Helsingborgs Dagblad’s first printing works (demolished in 1913) on Norra Strandgatan. The project team decided to use these a starting point for their vision and the following development work, both challenging and exciting, was carried out in collaboration with Michelsens Arkitekter and the town’s Project Department.

The photograph shows Bertil Hagberg, chairman, and Gideon Beil, deputy chairman, with Jan Björklund and Leif Augustsson from the town’s Project Department at the symbolic turf-cutting ceremony on 21 March 1994.

During the whole of the project, special attention was paid to different environmental and work safety aspects in order to create a safe environment in the museum for both staff and visitors. A lift for the disabled was a must; walls and floors were designed to carry the large and heavy printing presses. Henri Paul Amat redesigned the former travelling exhibition and it was renamed Types that Vanished.

Construction work on the new building was begun in February 1994 and was completed in November the same year. The whole location then became a hive of activity, everyone wanting to join in where help was needed. The heavy typesetting machines and printing presses were hoisted into place by NSR, one of our sponsors.

And the formal inauguration? This took place on 27 April 1995, a day now commemorated each year as Printing Museum Day.

And, best of all, we kept our promise – on the opening day were able to hand over one million crowns to the town...

We would like to thank all those who have volunteered their help, our sponsors and the town council for their fantastic help in creating this wonderful building and its very special environment.

And now, 13 years later, we find that our magnificent building is no longer adequate. Of course, it’s fantastic that the museum, with all its equipment left to us to manage and preserve for future generations, has developed so well. But to meet this challenge the museum will have to be extended. Click here to see how we envisage this.