Object of the Month – February 2026

The "Machine Temple"

A temple? – No, a steam engine! The “Machine Temple” is returning to Mecklenburg. This high-pressure steam engine, built in 1839 in Güstrow, powered textile machinery at the cloth factory in Plau am See until 1900. It was subsequently transferred to the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it remained on permanent display until 2023. The “Machine Temple” has now returned to the Burgmuseum in Plau am See on loan and will be open to visitors there from April onwards. At the phanTECHNIKUM, visitors can see the steam engine’s smaller sister – a 1:4 scale replica built in 1995.

The designer Ernst Alban was a man of many talents. He was born on 7 February 1791 in Neubrandenburg and died on 13 June 1856 in Plau am See. Alban initially studied medicine and practised as an ophthalmologist in Rostock. His true passion, however, lay in mechanical engineering. In 1829 he founded a mechanical engineering works in Stubbendorf. Subsequently, he designed agricultural equipment, textile machinery and steam engines – at times in his own factories in Stubbendorf and Plau, and at other times as technical director in Güstrow, where the “Machine Temple” was created. In 1845, the first steamship for the lakes of Mecklenburg, the “Alban”, was also built at the Ernst Alban engineering works in Plau.

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