- Place
- Klaipėda, Klaipėda City Municipality
- Region
- Klaipėda
- Type
- an appointment-only exhibition of shipbuilding and industrial heritage in the historic boat and yacht workshop
- Address
- Priešpilio g. 9, LT-91240 Klaipėda
- Coordinates
- 55.70568, 21.12592
- Visit duration
- about 45-75 minutes, depending on the programme agreed in advance
- Best time
- only at a time confirmed in advance by the exhibition operator; combine it with Klaipėda Castle and the cruise terminal
Lindenau Shipyard Exhibition, Paul Lindenau Shipyard Display, Lindenau-Werft Exhibition
Finding the exhibition and understanding its two addresses
The Paul Lindenau Shipyard Exhibition occupies the historic boat and yacht workshop beside Klaipėda Castle and the cruise terminal. Current visitor and company contact information uses Priešpilio g. 9. Heritage records still identify the wider listed complex by its historical Pilies g. 4 address, which is why both can appear in search results. For an actual visit, use Priešpilio g. 9 and the arrival instructions supplied when your booking is confirmed.
The coordinate on this page is a representative point within the Lindenau complex, not a verified public entrance or security gate. This remains a port-related working area. Ask in advance which building or gate is the meeting point, and do not enter signed restricted areas on your own.
Do not assume that every Klaipėda attraction described as a shipyard museum is this exhibition. This page concerns the display in the Paul Lindenau complex's historic boat and yacht workshop, visited by arrangement with Klaipėdos laivų remontas.
The boat and yacht workshop is an exhibit in its own right
The Paul Lindenau shipyard complex is entered in Lithuania's cultural heritage records under code 25898. Its five protected components are the hull workshop, technological bridge, pipe workshop and forge, boat and yacht workshop, and slipway with its slip. The exhibition is associated with the boat and yacht workshop, which has its own heritage code, 25902.
The workshop is a low, irregular-plan masonry industrial building. The operator's adaptation project describes an authentic rectangular first phase later extended to the north and south, a masonry western addition that replaced a timber canopy, and a raised roof light. The building's proportions, trusses, windows and working layout therefore deserve as much attention as the displays inside.
Nearby, the open steel frame of the Great Slipway is the most prominent landmark of the wider complex in Klaipėda's harbour panorama. For the shipyard's centenary, the municipality designated 2019 the Year of the Great Slipway. That was a one-year cultural programme, not an announcement of permanent exhibition opening hours.
What the exhibition reliably contains
The principal objects are two restored original Lindenau machines: a substantial mechanical metal press and a vertical band saw. Their cast-metal frames, flywheels and operating parts communicate the physical scale of workshop labour more directly than a text panel can. Large black-and-white photographs on the walls show the shipyard, its workforce and its industrial setting.
A public description mentions an opportunity to inspect working mechanisms or try them, but this is not permission to touch or start the machinery independently. Historic equipment contains moving and crushing parts. Follow the accompanying staff member's instructions and watch or take part in a demonstration only when they explicitly allow it.
Accounts of other shipbuilding museums in Klaipėda sometimes mention ship models and wider collections, but their permanent presence in this particular room could not be verified. Plan the visit for the authentic workshop, restored machinery, archival photographs and Lindenau history. Ask about any temporary display or additional object when making the booking.
From the founding of Lindenau-Werft in 1919 to evacuation in 1944
Engineer Paul Lindenau founded his Klaipėda company in 1919. Its German name advertised an unusually broad operation: Schiffswerft Memel - Lindenau und Cie., Eisen und Holzschiffbau, Maschinenfabrik und Giesserei. Metal and timber vessels were built and repaired here alongside machine manufacturing and foundry work. The complex expanded on a site where shipbuilding activity was older than the Lindenau company itself.
In 1922 the yard launched Cattaro, described in official heritage material as its first ocean-going steamship. The distinction matters: Cattaro was the Lindenau yard's first seagoing steamer, not the first ship ever built in Lithuania. Its name and date connect the surviving workshop to a documented product of the interwar yard.
As the Eastern Front approached, the company was evacuated from Klaipėda in autumn 1944. A ship repair enterprise operated in the complex after the Second World War, keeping the site tied to maritime industry under different management and production structures. The present exhibition concentrates on the Lindenau period up to 1944 rather than claiming to cover the whole post-war history of shipbuilding in Klaipėda.
How a working workshop became a heritage venue
The adaptation project for the boat and yacht workshop set out to make an industrial building previously used for commercial activity safe and meaningful for visitors. The EU investment register marks project 05.4.1-CPVA-K-303-01-0005 as completed; its contract was signed on 2 July 2018. Future-tense wording that remains on older project pages describes planned work, not a current promise that every proposed activity is available each day.
The project aimed to conserve the building's valuable features, interpret the workshop and wider shipyard, present surviving equipment and enable guided visits for groups, individuals and specialists. Today's advance-booking model fits the place: it is a small heritage space inside a working complex, not a conventional museum with a permanent ticket desk.
A separate Western Baltija Shipbuilding museum has also appeared in public accounts of Klaipėda's maritime industry. It concerns another company and post-war shipbuilding. Ship models, an old administrative building or displays described there should not be attributed automatically to the Paul Lindenau boat and yacht workshop.
Booking, admission, safety and planning the visit
This is not a walk-in attraction with daily opening hours. Visits are arranged in advance with Klaipėdos laivų remontas; the official contact details checked on 20 July 2026 were +370 46 490 990 and info@ports.lt. When booking, confirm the date, group size, meeting point, tour language, photography rules and whether a guided visit is available on the chosen day.
The sources checked did not publish a permanent exhibition timetable or confirmed admission price. Do not assume that the visit is free simply because no price list is shown. Ask the operator about any fee, method of payment and minimum group or age conditions, and recheck the company's official information before travelling because arrangements can change.
The suggested 45-75 minutes is a planning estimate, not an official session length. No comprehensive independent wheelchair-access audit of the current interior was found, so ask about steps, thresholds, toilets and assistance for mobility or visual impairments when booking. Keep children beside you, do not touch machinery without permission, and continue afterwards to Klaipėda Castle, the swing bridge or cruise terminal.
