The MAN Gasometer is the only one left of the 5 gasometers of the Bologna Gas Workshop in which the gas was stored before being distributed in the pipeline network serving the city of Bologna. It consists of a prismatic casing in 16-sided sheet metal, whose circumscribed circle has a diameter of 30 m and a total height of 52 m. It was launched in 1930, and at that time represented a modern technology, that of the so-called "dry" gasometers due to their being internally equipped with a mobile buffer that, with its upward and downward motion, allowed the variation of the volume of the gas contained, containing up to 30,000 cubic meters.
It was restored in 2018 as part of the project regarding construction of the new headquarters of Hera SpA, and stands out as a distinctive feature of said project.
The Coke Canopy is one of the cardinal points of the Bologna Gas Workshop and was used to store coke coal, a by-product from the ovens in which gas was produced from fossil coal. It is a lightweight construction, made of iron beams and reticular pillars, divided into 8 spans and having a total length of 68 m, a width of 29 m and a maximum height of 18 m. It was built in 1912, equipped with a cable railway and a mobile bridge that allowed the movement of wagons within, tipping over the coke at predetermined points of the canopy. It was restored in 2020, with the insertion of 8 mobile portals that, moving on special tracks, allow both an open configuration (which delimits a multipurpose room of about 1200 square meters) and a closed configuration (which allows a view of the historic space and the staging of outdoor events).
The Old Workshop is a building made with exposed bricks from Bologna that, in the Gas Workshop in Bologna, housed all the systems that carried out the purification of gas from the furnaces and the extraction of by-products such as naphthalene, ammonia and tar. Built in 1906, the building’s total length is 88 m with a width of 17 m, originally arranged on one single floor. In the years 2008-2011, the old workshop was subject to demolition, reclamation of the sediment area and a faithful reconstruction of the external facades of the pre-existing, formerly industrial, building. Inside, three floors (one underground) of offices and meeting rooms have been built for a total of 4500 square meters, which are intended for the company management.
