The Fábrica do Inglês complex, which includes the Cork Museum, which has been closed since 2009, will be up for auction this Friday, the 30th, at 14:30 pm, for the base bid price of 2.238.000 euros.
The auction, promoted by Leilosoc, is part of the insolvency process of Fábrica do Inglês Gestão de Empresas Imobiliárias e Turísticas SA, which owns the buildings of the former cork factory, which were transformed in 1999 into a restaurant and leisure complex. one of its wings, the Cork Museum, which was awarded the Luigi Micheletti prize in 2001.
With no money to buy the buildings – which total 5400 square meters of total area and 3200 meters of covered area – the Municipality of Silves is ready to acquire, at auction, the estate of the Cork Museum.
“We intend to acquire the estate. It is our decision to do so», guaranteed the president of the Chamber Rosa Palma, in statements to Sul Informação.
The mayor added, however, that "the collection of the Cork Museum only makes sense in that location", so the municipality intends to "enter into consultation with whoever buys the building, to try to keep the collection there and reopen the museum".
After, in May 2012, having been removed, to the Algarve District Archive, the documental archive dating back to the XNUMXth century, which was part of its collection, the museum area still houses unique examples of machines for processing cork in the world.
In June 2013, Fábrica do Inglês had already been placed by the Tax and Customs Authority (Finance) at public auction, but this operation was canceled for the insolvency request submitted by the Nogueira Group, which in 2012 bought the companies of the former Alicoop/Alisuper Group.
With the bankruptcy of the company belonging to the former Alicoop/Alisuper group, the Cork Museum closed in 2009, ten years after its inauguration. Fábrica do Inglês, which was part of the museum space and several restaurants, terraces and gardens, resulted from the restoration and transformation of the century-old factory Aven, Sounds & amp; Barrels.
The Cork Museum was distinguished in 2001 with the Luigi Micheletti prize, as the best industrial museum in Europe, receiving more than 100 visitors that year.
In 2012, on May 18, International Museum Day, and also the third anniversary of the closing of the museum space, former museum director Manuel Castelo Ramos, with his students from the EB 2,3 School Dr. Garcia Domingues, other teachers and people of the land, promoted an operation to clean up accumulated herbs and debris.
At the time, Manuel Castelo Ramos told the Sul Informação: «We don't want the insolvency process in which the Fábrica do Inglês is going to prevent the reopening of this Museum and, above all, we don't want it to lead to the dispersion of this heritage. Also because much of what is here actually belonged to Fábrica do Inglês, but there were also many donations from people from Silves».
“The future of the museum will also have to be what people, the Silvenses, want it to be. But for this it is necessary that, following the example of these young students, people get involved. Sooner or later this museum will have to be reopened», said, hopefully, Manuel Ramos, in May 2012.
Two years later, in May 2014, the Museum and the entire Fábrica do Inglês complex are going to be auctioned, not knowing the fate of the buildings, not even the museum collection, despite the firm intention of the Municipality of Silves to acquire it. .
Comments