Rijeka City Museum
Rijeka from pre-Roman times to punk rock
Few museums are better at revealing a city’s character than the Rijeka City Museum.
Occupying the lovingly restored baroque interiors of the so-called “Sugar Palace”, the eighteenth-century administrative building of what was once a sugar refinery, it makes imaginative use of sound, visuals and interactive screens, as well as providing the solid urban chronology you need to follow the city’s story.
Main themes include the roles of shipbuilding, modern architecture and popular music in shaping Rijeka’s identity. Particularly compelling is the history of the torpedo, first tested here by British-born engineer Robert Whitehead, who went on to develop Rijeka as a major centre of armanents production.
There is also rare footage of Gabriele D’Annunzio, the poet and proto-Fascist demagogue who occupied Rijeka with a force of Italian adventurers in 1919, subjecting the city to 16 months of chaotic misrule.