Museum of the School of Engineering

The Museum of the Porto Higher Institute of Engineering was created in 1999. It was born from an old ambition to assemble and exhibit a precious collection of scientific and educational instruments which clearly show how experimental education has evolved scientifically and technical since the creation of the Industrial School in 1852. The collection functions almost like a time capsule in which the major technological breakthroughs of the past centuries can be admired. From physics, with its optical, electrostatic, hydrodynamic, heat and acoustic instruments, to electrotechnology, with electrical measuring devices, telegraphs and motors, mining and metallurgy, with its furnaces and models, mechanics, with steam engines, chemistry, with special mention for precision scales and various laboratory utensils, hydraulic implements such as waterwheels, civil engineering, with its models of bridges and other structures, the models of descriptive geometry, and the various plaster casts in the design section. Besides all of this, the museum also has a library with over two thousand titles and several rare publications, such as an encyclopaedia by Diderot and Alembert, a precious book on physics by Musschenbroeck and an architectural tome by Leon Battista Alberti, and an archive containing a very wide collection of documents, such as letters, instruments of investiture of the directors, minutes and others. The museum of ISEP has been part of the RPM since August 2015.