Technical Museum of East Iceland

Local name: Tækniminjasafn Austurlands

A landslide took most of this museum on 18 December 2020; it now works out of the surviving half of a machine shop and out of the streets of the town.

The Technical Museum of East Iceland stands in Seyðisfjörður, on the east coast. It covers the country's industrialisation from about 1880 to the present: machine work, electricity, telegraphy, transport and building. The museum was established in 1984 and opened its first exhibition in 1995, in the heritage buildings of the old Wathne Estate. The 2020 landslide destroyed much of that site. The museum now shows its work in the surviving part of the Old Machine Shop and in open-air displays across the town.

Museum

Entrance: Paid — small admission
Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible parking and a wheelchair-accessible toilet.
Parking: Free street parking.
Difficulty: Easy — indoor, a short walk from the port
Transport: Self-drive (Route 93) or the Norröna ferry
Hours: Monday to Saturday 11:00–17:00; closed on Sunday.
Address: Hafnargata 38b, 710 Seyðisfjörður

What makes it special

The museum lost most of its buildings on 18 December 2020, when a landslide came down on Búðareyri. Significant parts of the collection went with them, and a substantial number of objects were rescued. What survived is a section of the Old Machine Shop, and that is where the exhibition Búðareyri – a story of transformations has run since the summer of 2022. It follows the district from 1880 to today: work, industry, housing, and the slides themselves. The exhibition holds no registered artefacts, because the building sits where it cannot be protected from a future slide. So the displays were designed to be touched and tried instead. Outside, among the ruins, a second section sets out what led to the 2020 landslide and what came after it.

Good to know

Season: the indoor exhibition does not run all year — one visitor arrived before 22 May to find it shut, with no notice beforehand.
Languages: signage is in Icelandic and English; the audio is mostly in Icelandic.
Outdoors: the signboards, the cairns and the harbour Outdoor Gallery stand in public space and are accessible at any hour.
Hands-on: the indoor exhibition keeps no registered artefacts and is built to be handled, down to a geological sandpit.
On site: there are toilets, and staff in the exhibition who know the collection.

Getting there

The museum sits in the Búðareyri area on the harbour side of Seyðisfjörður, about ten minutes on foot from the centre of town. Much of it is not in a building at all. The Outdoor Gallery is in the harbour area near the ferry terminal, and the museum's cairns, each with a bench built into it, are set at points around the town. Two signs just below the Machine Shop mark the old slipway and the deck gun salvaged from El Grillo, the oil tanker sunk in the fjord during the Second World War.

Best time to visit

Better: summer, when the exhibition inside the Old Machine Shop is open and there is someone there to ask. Avoid: building a visit around the indoor rooms outside the summer season.

The museum is spread through the town rather than gathered in one hall, and that changes what a visit looks like by month. In winter the outdoor sections are what remains of it.

Things to do nearby

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Sun & daylight

Waterfall

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Petra's Stone Collection