1. Tate Modern, London
The global poster child for converting from industrial to cultural is the Tate Modern in London, now home to the UK's national collection of post-1900 art. It occupies the former Bankside Power Station, which closed in 1981, and was earmarked for demolition. Instead, architects Herzog and de Meuron took on the challenge, keeping the turbine hall as the centrepiece and home of big, temporary installations. They also added a sizable glass extension on the roof, and made the boiler house the main exhibition space. It was a roaring success - according to the most recent visitor numbers, more than 4.5 million people visited the Tate Modern in 2024. tate.org.uk
2. The Zollverein, Germany
2. Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia region is the master of audacious industrial conversions, though. The centrepiece is the World Heritage-listed Zollverein complex in Essen, where a massive escalator takes you up to the coal washery. It's now home to the Ruhr Museum, which delves into the region's history and industry. There's more fun elsewhere, however, with a swimming pool in the old coking plant, and the Red Dot Design Museum is inside the former boiler house. The Norman Foster-designed exhibition space looks at design innovations in everything from phones to bathtubs. zollverein.de
3. The Gasometer, Germany
3. Standing 117 metres tall above the Ruhr Valley, the Gasometer in Oberhausen is a decommissioned gas cylinder now used to house giant artworks. And by giant, take how big you're expecting and multiply several times. The exhibition changes every year or so, usually combining supersized murals and video art, which can be viewed from a glass lift that rises through the 360-degree art blizzard to the rooftop. The theme for 2026 is Myth of the Forest, which is centred around a light-art tree rising through the centre of the cylinder. gasometer.de
4. Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
4. Once an eyesore on the Cape Town waterfront, a former 57-metre grain silo was transformed into a multi-floor art museum. Now capped with a glass top to bring cathedral-like light into the structure, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa has more than 6500 square metres of exhibition space, plus a sculpture garden. It's the biggest museum in the world focused on contemporary African art and has helped boost Cape Town as a cultural destination. zeitzmocaa.museum
5. The Brim Silos, Victoria
5. The South Africans aren't the only ones doing impressive things with silos. Across western Victoria, in the Grampians and Wimmera Mallee regions, a 700-kilometre art trail has sprung up over the last decade, with large-scale murals transforming massive rural grain silos.
Ground zero for this movement is the tiny settlement of Brim where, in 2016, Guido van Helten painted four farmers from different generations on the towering silos next to the Henty Highway. Others along the trail are more colourful, and have more of a nature-based focus, but van Helten's original kicked off the movement. Visitwimmeramallee.com.au
6. Wieliczka Salt Mine, Poland
5. Near Krakow, the Wieliczka Salt Mine was a money-making machine from the 13th century onwards. It closed as a working mine in 1996, but is now one of Poland's top tourist attractions. Tours inside the mine include underground saline lakes and the extraordinary St Kinga's Chapel, which has a preposterously elaborate altarpiece carved from salt. Throughout the route are numerous statues and sculptures. Once upon a time, these were all of religious figures, but the mine still employs salt sculptors and the newer works are much more idiosyncratic. wieliczka-saltmine.com
7. The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
6. There are no surprises in what this museum in western Pennsylvania used to be. But there are plenty in what it is now. The Mattress Factory gives over its space to artists to create big site-specific installations. Rather than being a gallery where works are displayed as a permanent collection, the idea is to have artists in residence for a few months and create ambitious, supersized works on site. These are often collaborative affairs between several artists, blurring the lines between multiple genres and artforms. Weirdness and creativity are allowed to run riot. mattress.org
8. Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester
7. The Liverpool Road Railway Station was the terminus of the world's first inter-city passenger railway, but it has now been repurposed as a museum that focuses on science and Manchester's industrial heritage. Part of it is hands-on interactive experiments and physics-related button pushing, the other half is big machines and displays on the cotton industry. But all of it is housed by the red brick railyard buildings that played a significant part in spurring the industrial revolution. scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk
9. Former Ford Factory, Singapore
8. In an ideal world, the Former Ford Factory on the edge of Singapore's Bukit Timah Nature Reserve would be remembered as Ford's first car-manufacturing plant in South-East Asia. Instead, it's known as the place where Britain surrendered Singapore to the invading Japanese army in 1942. Now run by the National Archives of Singapore, it serves as a museum about the country during World War II. Displays look at how Singapore fell, the brutal life under Japanese rule and the legacies of the war. But despite the original photos, documents and oral histories, the highlight is the boardroom where the surrender took place. corporate.nas.gov.sg
10. Albany's Historic Whaling Station, WA
9. One industry we're thankful to see the back of is whaling, and Australia's last whaling station closed down in 1978. The former Cheyne Beach Whaling Station in Albany, Western Australia, is now a remarkable museum devoted to whales and the lives of the men who chased them. The whale oil storage tanks are now theatres, the skeleton of the last sperm whale caught hangs overhead and audio recordings show just how grim life was on the flensing deck where the newly captured whales were cut up. discoverybay.com.au