Luigi Micheletti Award

The Englishman Mill’s Cork Museum was born in 1999 after a process of rehabilitation of an old cork factory (1894) to tourist and leisure park. It was a project that came from private initiative and tried to conciliate, in an original way, preservation of industrial heritage and tourism, the main economical activity in Algarve (Portugal). This project proves that these are no contradictory issues, like bad examples could let us think. Besides, the Cork Museum of Silves, one of the few examples in Portugal, is a fair tribute to the town that was in the recent past one of the biggest cork centres in the country (the biggest producer and exporter of this natural product), giving an important contribute to the preservation of the community collective memory and identity.

One of the main museum objectives is to develop a serious work around cork and it’s culture, promoting a product that have, we believe, a great future in a more responsible and conscious society in ecological terms.