Hainaut
You can still find a monumental remnant of a nineteenth-century lime kiln complex along the Scheldt.
Cement and concrete
Explore the solid foundations of Europe's industrial heritage through the history of cement and concrete sites.
- 11 destinations
Hainaut
The concrete remains of the Cimenteries Alexandre Dapsens are perhaps the oldest witnesses to the technique of prestressed concrete in Belgium.
Hainaut
Dozens of historic lime kilns stretch along the banks of the Scheldt between Antoing and Tournai. They evoke the heyday of the cement industry in the region.
Liège
For more than half a century, this lime factory's four kilns produced 180 tons of lime per day, but today, the complex stands alone in a forest near Aachen, Germany.
Italy
The Supramonte Mountains in Sardinia are not only littered with traces of our ancestors from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, but modern humans have also left their mark there.
Zeeland
A thirty-meter-high concrete pillar looks lost next to the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier in the Netherlands.
Berlin
In 1937, architect Albert Speer unveiled his plans for converting Berlin into Welthauptstadt Germania. In his imagination, the new Berlin was teeming with ostentatious monuments that kept pace with the megalomania of the Third Reich.
Brandenburg
The cradle of the German lime and cement industry is in Rüdersdorf, where the largest limestone quarry in Central Europe is located.
Spain
In the 1950s, a cement factory opened in the heart of the Pyrenees. The quarry was a stone's throw away, while the coal came from the nearby mines of Malpàs. What could go wrong?
Sardinia
A limestone massif twenty kilometres long: that's all it took to attract lime factories and quarries to the island of Sardinia.
Latest from the blog
In the early nineteenth century, the industrial revolution swept across continental Europe and one steelworks after another rose from the ground. Europe had hundreds of blast furnaces, but since the mid-twentieth century, Europe's steel industry has been slowly going downhill.
All photos and stories are copyrighted. Of course, linking to articles on the site is possible and allowed.
If you would like to use photos or articles from this website, please contact bart@hiddenmonuments.com.
© 2003-2025 Hiddenmonuments.com