Michel Lucius would probably have felt right at home in this circle. A group of committed local residents has gathered around the retired engineer Jos Bormann with the aim of reviving the museum in the birthplace of the Luxembourgish geologist in Reimberg. To this end, they have founded an association called „Les Amis du Musée Michel Lucius“.
“At a time when many associations are struggling to attract a new generation of members, the creation of a new one is naturally very good news,” says Bormann. For him personally, however, it means even more: at last, he has found the companions he had long hoped for.
Jos Bormann has been offering guided tours of the museum for many years. It is thanks to his voluntary work that the museum has not completely faded from the public consciousness. He is now receiving support from the LEADER project „Geschichteland: Muséeën am Wëlle Westen“. This project, which aims to promote culture in the region, focuses on the numerous museums, seeking to link them together, initiate new activities and raise their profile through professional communication. As a result, Michel Lucius’s birthplace is also being given a permanent place on the region’s cultural map.
The museum’s potential becomes clear as soon as one steps inside. The carefully restored farmhouse is an impressive example of rural architecture. Display panels and glass cases tell the story of an extraordinary life. The exhibition is modest in scale, but thoughtfully presented.
The Luxembourg State acquired the building in the early 1990s, when it was still being used as a private home in the quiet village of Reimberg. “It was in very poor condition,” Bormann recalls. For a long time, no one quite knew what purpose the house should serve.
In 2001, at the initiative of the then mayor, Emile Calmes, a group of geologists and people who had known Michel Lucius personally founded the Institut Géologique Michel Lucius. The association organised lectures, academic conferences and geological field trips. Following its restoration, the building opened as a museum in 2005. Over the years, however, activity around the association gradually subsided. In the end, it was chiefly Jos Bormann who ensured that the house remained open to the public at least once a month. It still opens its doors on the first Sunday of every month, while guided visits can also be arranged on other days.
A steep flight of stairs leads to the former kitchen, with its original hearth. To the right lies the small living room. Where family life once unfolded, the exhibition now traces the journey of the man regarded as the father of Luxembourg geology.
Michel Lucius was born on 9 December 1876 and grew up in modest circumstances. His father worked in the Mertzig quarry. Perhaps it was there that the young boy’s curiosity about rocks and geological strata was first aroused. Yet nothing suggested that, in that small farmhouse in Reimberg, a life was beginning that could scarcely be recounted more thrillingly in a novel.
Michel Lucius initially became a village schoolteacher. “He first had to save enough money to study abroad,” Bormann explains. In 1902, he attended the Sorbonne in Paris for two semesters before returning to Luxembourg. Only in 1910 was he able to continue his geological studies at the University of Zurich. He completed them with a doctoral thesis on the tectonics of the Devonian formations in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
However, his academic qualifications by no means opened every door for him in his home country. After returning from Switzerland, Lucius initially went back to work as a teacher. He received his first geological commission in Bad Mondorf, where he supervised the drilling of the Marie-Adelheid spring.
A life straight out of a Karl May novel
Shortly afterwards, his life took an unexpected turn. Lucius took up a post with an oil company in Baku on the Caspian Sea. He later worked in Grozny. Shortly after his arrival, the First World War broke out, making a return to Western Europe increasingly difficult.
Following the 1917 Revolution, Lucius witnessed the upheavals of Russian history at close quarters. Fighting erupted across the Caucasus for control of its strategically vital oilfields. He saw armed conflict and the violent remaking of an entire region. The oil operation for which he worked was placed under Soviet administration. He later recounted these experiences in a series of articles published by the Tageblatt under the title “Was ich in Sowjetrussland erlebte”, or “What I Experienced in Soviet Russia”. Michel Lucius eventually returned to Luxembourg ill and penniless.
He appears to have recovered quickly. That same year, the City of Esch-sur-Alzette commissioned him to investigate how its water supply could be secured for the decades ahead. For Lucius, geology was not simply an academic discipline. It was a practical understanding of the land and a foundation for political decision-making.
In 1924, Lucius became geological adviser to the young Turkish Republic. His task was to locate deposits of oil, coal and metal ores. Contemporary accounts describe him as a tireless field researcher. With a small team and pack animals, he travelled through the difficult terrain of Anatolia. By day he worked in intense heat; by night he slept in a tent. He also taught at the university in Ankara.
Although he was held in high esteem in Turkey, Michel Lucius returned to Luxembourg in 1933. This marked the beginning of the period in his life that was to make him a household name in his homeland: the systematic geological mapping of the Grand Duchy. From 1936 to 1961, he headed the newly established „Service géologique de l’Etat“.
Much of what visitors learn in the second part of the museum exhibition is based on work carried out during this period: it covers rock strata, tectonics and fossils, but also explores the significance that geological knowledge continues to have for everyday life today.
„The issue of drinking water is particularly close to my heart,“ says Jos Bormann. He wants to convey to children and young people in particular just how valuable this resource is and the journey water takes before it flows from the tap.
Enjoying sharing knowledge
Jos Bormann has taught himself the geological knowledge required for his guided tours, which was not difficult for him given his scientific and technical background. Nor are his new colleagues, Karsten Küpper and Dirk Leistico – who are accompanying him through the museum today – experts in the field. They see themselves, above all, as communicators. Their aim is to make Michel Lucius’s scientific legacy accessible to a wider public and to explain why he remains one of Luxembourg’s most significant figures to this day. They are already in contact with the „Naturmusée“, which will help them to organise the existing documents and produce new educational material.
One of Michel Lucius’s most important works is the geological map of the Grand Duchy. He also published several seminal handbooks. However, his work was not limited to research and cartography. The state called upon him to assist with major infrastructure projects, such as the construction of the dams at Esch/Sauer, Vianden and Rosport, and the canalisation of the Moselle.
Michel Lucius continued to give lectures and publish specialist articles well into old age. Geology was far more than a profession to him. His life’s achievement was to make Luxembourg’s hidden foundations legible to the State, its municipalities and the wider public.
He would probably have been pleased that his birthplace is now set to become, once again, a place of exchange and shared learning. After all, Michel Lucius never actually retired, as Jos Bormann knows: „It is said that he died at his desk in the „Ponts et Chaussées“ headquarters – at the ripe old age of 85.“ Text and photos: Martine Hemmer (the English translation is AI generated, orginal text in German)
Contact details for the club: Jos Bormann, email borjo@pt.lu, Tel. 621292107
