Fans of industrial heritage will love the ambitious transformation projects of Germany’s Ruhrgebeit.
What is the Ruhrgebeit?
Germany’s industrial heartland might not seem so sexy compared to heavily-visited Bavaria’s castles and beer halls or Berlin’s urban cool, but the transformations from coal to culture in the Ruhr Valley are astonishing.
The Ruhrgebeit is a conurbation of medium-sized cities, including Dortmund, Bochum and Gelsenkirchen, but none really acts as a dominant centre. The showpiece makeovers are shared amongst them, too – Dortmund’s Christmas Market has the world’s largest Christmas tree, for instance.
Duisburg and Oberhausen
Head to Duisburg, though, and you’ll get the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord – a former ironworks turned into a colossal adventure playground and concert venue. What once were ore bunkers are now used for free climbing.
In Oberhausen, what once was the largest gas holder in Europe has been turned into a vast 117m high exhibition space, enthusiastically embracing big-is-better, wow factor installations.
The Zollverein complex
The superstar, however, is the Zollverein complex in Essen – once the largest coal-mining facility in the world, and now an extraordinary arts hub.
A giant escalator leads to the former coal-washing facility that’s now the Ruhr Museum. This is all about geological heritage, mining history and how industry has changed over time. Elsewhere in the complex, the Norman Foster-sculpted Red Dot Design Museum shows off nifty state-of-the-art gadgets and provokes several “want one!” cries per minute with purringly gorgeous takes on everyday household items. And, if respite is required, there’s a swimming pool and big wheel inside the old coking plant.
The Ruhrgebeit is unusual – an industrial area that hasn’t had the stuffing kicked out of it. Prosperity has been invested in art, and the beauty of gargantuan clanking machinery has been venerated rather than buried away.
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