BOIS DU CAZIER

The first attraction in the Charleroi region with 60,000 visitors a year, the Bois du Cazier is a former colliery whose visit is not to be missed, and which should be marked with a cross on the tourist map of Wallonia. Listed as a Unesco heritage site since 2012, the Bois du Cazier is not only a site of memory but also a site of awareness for the development of active citizenship. The site now houses three distinct museum areas.

Space 8 August 1956. At the Bois du Cazier colliery on the morning of 8 August 1956, the Pays Noir lived through its darkest hours. A fire, caused by a coal wagon stuck in the lift, blocked the miners at a depth of 1,035 metres: 262 men of twelve different nationalities, including 136 Italians and 95 Belgians, perished in this catastrophe. It is dedicated to the mining disaster. Films, photographs, documents and various testimonies relate, almost minute by minute, this painful day and those that followed.

The Museum of Industry. The second space is dedicated to the great adventure of the Industrial Revolution. It evokes mining of course, but also energy, chemistry, iron and steel, printing, mechanical and electrical engineering. These different trades are recounted in a modern and interactive way (audio-guide).

The Glass Museum. It completes the coal-iron-glass trilogy, and presents a remarkable collection of glass art and retraces the history of this material from an innovative angle. A reverse chronology invites the visitor on a unique journey from the present to the origins of glass. It features antique pieces from all periods and origins, creations by master glassmakers and artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. A privileged moment of discovery of the techniques and know-how of glassmakers and jewels from all periods in the old lamp factory, to which a new glass and steel building has been added.

The workshops. The visit continues with a live demonstration of how glass is made. The workshops are run by craftsmen and host demonstrations of forging, casting and glass-blowing with a blowtorch in an authentic atmosphere.

A footpath has been laid out on the three slag heaps of the Bois du Cazier and allows visitors to discover the entire coal mining industry while offering, from the landscape observatory installed at the top of the Saint-Charles slag heap, an exceptional panorama of the diversity of the Charleroi region.