TT Gaskets in the museum as part of the story of Tampere’s industry

The new Industrial Museum at Tampere’s Finlayson tells the 200-year-old story of the city’s industry and the present day. The exhibition presents different periods of the factories, products made in Tampere and people employed by the industry. The showcases include products of TT Gaskets (Tampereen Tiivisteteollisuus Oy). In addition, you can listen to stories from the early 19th century to today’s corporate world. One of the recordings tells the story of our company.

Employees from the company’s early years. Photo: Kirsti Jalaistus, home album.

It’s absolutely wonderful for us to be elected to the small group with which the Industrial Museum tells how Tampere grew and developed to be Finland’s Manchester. Tampere is a dear home for the company. My grandfather Jussi Arpiainen and his two business partners founded Tampereen Tiivisteteollisuus Oy in 1943 in the garage of the Aaltonen shoe factory, on the outskirts of Tammela’s market square.

The roles and the main focus of production changed

During the war, almost no raw materials were available. Innovation and courage to try were the only medicine to cope with the time of scarcity. Working on behalf of the motherland brought real meaning and motivation to work. Years and decades rolled forward. TT Gaskets has developed an automated its production and internationalized its business. The roles changed, and the Aaltonen shoe factory became our tenant in our empty factory in the 1990’s. Textiles and shoes were replaced by machines and components.

Today, Tampere has a remarkable group of large and medium-sized machine workshops and other industrial companies, at the international top of their fields. Tampere is still the home base of TT Gaskets, which continues to give us many opportunities to try and delight our customers around the world and to offer quality working conditions with good transport connections. We are proud of the fact we are part of Tampere’s unparalleled industrial history. At the same time, we are humbly building a more environmentally friendly future for Tampere for the benefit of us all.

Manufacture of gaskets with presses in the 1970s. Photo: TT Gaskets’ archive.

I warmly invite everyone to get acquainted with the history of Tampere’s industry and wish you a rewarding museum visit!

The Industrial Museum was opened to public on Friday, June 11th, 2021. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday at Väinö Linnan Aukio 8, Tampere. www.tyovaenmuseo.fi

Admission to the exhibition is free. The exhibition, co-produced by the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas and the museum centre Vapriikki, tells the 200-year-old story of Tampere’s industry as part of global industrialization. The implementation has been made possible by the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Museum Vision grant of EUR 250,000.

Aleksi Arpiainen

Aleksi Arpiainen is the CEO of TT Gaskets in the third generation. According to him, the success of a family business is fueled by continuous development and innovation. In the blog, Aleksi sheds light on his thoughts on where the world of gaskets is going.