Industrial heritage can be seen as a good opportunity to explain the history of the world we live in. If defined as a mere technique, industrial heritage will lose its value and social reputation. The ingenuity of engineers which sometimes gets very close to art, the organization of work and the social and cultural implications of industry today present a chance for a better understanding of the world we live in. Traditional museums thought that the knowledge they produce will be enough to justify their existence. Today it is clear: we need a strong lesson, the type of communication

whose attractiveness and usability will force us to make quality changes. In a world whose quality is in the largest sense threatened, industrial heritage can present a century or two of a dramatic experience; it can invoke some former criteria and inspire wise solutions. A viable development cannot be based on managerial and

political witticism, but on moral and responsible long-term solutions for which profit cannot be the only surviving ideology.The mentioned heritage has in Croatia been underestimated for decades because it

holds a low position in the value system. The ideological indoctrination of the former political system could not achieve recognition for work, and in the present circumstances

work is degraded by the speculative nature of predator capitalism.

The modern institution of a museum is not a house of objects, but rather a house of ideas. It possesses its needed understanding which recognizes two dominant processes within itself in stead of the former domination of musealization. When taken as a communication

institution, a museum changes its character and ways of activity completely. The cybernetic principle which is installed in the activity of a museum makes it a part of the mechanism for controlling the modern society. A controlled society has a controlled collective memory with a predictable and necessary effect: an effect needed

by the society for keeping a balance, a certain positive social norm. It is for that that museums are political, economic and social institutions “par excellence” and exhibitions as part of their activity are more important than ever. A cybernetic, useful museum must take its rightful place in the developmental dichotomy,

as part of culture as “science’s conscience”. The main question of the prosperity of heritage professions is whether they will know how to show their enormous potential and present it in such a way that they become an imperative in the developmental strategy.