Curtir Ciência is located in an old tannery, in the so-called “Leather Zone”. The names of the center and the block refer to the tanning of hides, which in the 19th century was one of the most important activities in Guimarães. This room recreates some stages of the process of working with animal hides, with many photographs, testimonies and other documents.
Since prehistoric times, there has been evidence that humans have used animal skins to protect themselves from weather conditions that were often hostile to their survival. This has forced humans to seek out ways to preserve their footwear and clothing for increasingly longer periods of time.
With the mastery of the process of tanning animal skins, Man increased the applications of these goods to a higher level since the skins stopped decomposing over time. In the region of Guimarães, at the end of the 19th century, one of the most important economic activities was the tanning of hides, so much so that a block even emerged, a kind of “demarcated region”, known as the Leather Zone.
In a room that maintains its original conservation conditions, it is possible to learn how our ancestors carried out the various stages of the tanning process and understand why their knowledge is still so important today.
In this room, some stages of the process of working with animal skins are recreated, with many photographs, testimonies and other documents.
For centuries, the transformation of hides into leather was associated with the vegetable tanning process, using oak bark. This process was time-consuming, and involved successive immersions and resting in tanks filled with oak bark, whose tannin was essential. The hides came from the slaughter of animals in slaughterhouses, and could also be sent from various parts of the world, arriving in Guimarães through traders, many of whom were based in Porto.
By tanning we refer to the set of operations that made the skin imputrescible after the application of vegetable substances with tanning properties. Oak or sumac were the products applied in the tanning process, in the form of crushed bark. In Guimarães, oak bark was the most requested product, and extracts were introduced to speed up the process with the help of a mechanism called “tanú” or “folão”, replacing the ribeira process.
After tanning, the hides underwent various finishing operations depending on the desired purpose. The hides could be dyed or engraved, given more flexibility by impregnating them with fats, or adjusted in thickness and texture, according to the commercial purposes of the products.
English 
Portuguese