An exhibition has opened in the Archbishop's Castle in Kaštel Sućurac Cement factory "Dalmatia" dd in Kaštel Sućurac (1912 - 1942) on the occasion of the 111th anniversary of the completion of construction. Various interesting objects from the factory's operating period have been collected for the exhibition, and it is open until May 18, 2026.
Cement Factory "Dalmatia" dd was founded in 1912 when the Jewish company "Jules Porgès & Cie" located in Paris, the Bavarian company "Otto Steinbeis & Consorten" from Brannenburg and the joint capital of the Vienna branch of the Hungarian Banking Society from Pest founded the joint-stock company "Dalmatia" in 1912, which began construction of a cement factory in the autumn of that year. The factory was completed on the eve of World War I, the first tons of cement were produced in 1914, and regular production began in 1919.
It is interesting that next to the factory on the western coast of Cape Grmajevac, on a naturally elevated part of the terrain, a small elite settlement was built for managers, engineers and clerks and their families. This is evidenced by a photograph in which one can see one-story administrative and residential buildings, probably with Art Nouveau or Classicist features, and especially a villa in front of which there was a geometrically shaped garden. The preserved parts of the building of the vertical and old rotary kilns were demolished in the period from 2001 to 2010.
According to the testimony of the locals of Kaštel Sućurac, next to the factory there were tennis and football fields for the Titan tennis and football club, and there were always many children around the factory. The factory also owned two large Titan docks, named after the high-quality Titan Portland cement that the factory produced. The workers employed in the "Dalmatia" dd factory were primarily Sućurac residents who had sold their land to the factory. They worked in very difficult conditions. Most of them, in addition to working in the "factory", continued to engage in agriculture.
The exhibition features various objects that were in the interiors, such as a robust Altdeutsch style bookcase (German Neo-Renaissance), a white marble sculpture, numerous advertising items, a stamp matrix and a stamp for making bag labels... Most of the objects were collected by the Podvorje association, and several objects arrived at the museum through purchase and loan. The exhibition is open until the Museum Day of the City of Kaštela, on May 18th.
Photo: Andrej Valentić
