German Journal Industriekultur 3.24: The Ruhr Industrial Heritage Route, Part 2
‘Symbols of structural transformation in the Ruhr District’ is the title of the second part in the presentation of the area's most important industrial monuments, as featured in the latest edition of the Journal Industriekultur. This is in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail, which was established in the same year as the ERIH network. The monuments presented in the journal include three ERIH Anchor Points and two member sites.
Among the region's most striking landmarks is the Oberhausen Gasometer. This unique cultural venue with its spectacular exhibitions reveals its full atmosphere to visitors who let the glass panorama lift take them up the 100-metre-high hall. A trip to the roof of the former gas storage of Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) offers a sweeping view over the Ruhr area and clearly shows how much the region has developed over decades of structural transition.
A no less impressive spatial effect, albeit horizontal, is achieved by the Hall of the Century Bochum. Today's ERIH site made its glamorous debut in 1902 at the Düsseldorf Industry and Trade Exhibition. Decorated with stucco, fake sandstone and golden knobs, the structure made of glass and steel fulfilled the function of an oversized jewellery box to celebrate the 1854-founded steel company Bochumer Verein. Once the exhibition closed, the building was transferred to Bochum and henceforth served as a gas power station. Today, the Jahrhunderthalle is the official festival venue of the internationally renowned RuhrTriennale arts and culture programme.
Sheer nostalgia abounds at the Bochum Railway Museum. Here, on the vast grounds of the former Dahlhausen railway depot, visitors get to marvel at around 180 engines, carriages and other rolling stock from the period between 1853 and 1964 on an area covering 70,000 square metres. On special occasions, some of these vehicles take railway fans from close by and far afield on a "historic" ride along the Ruhr Valley.
‘’Imperial‘’ is what the Henrichenburg Ship Lift has in store. The then state-of-the-art plant almost doubled the output of corresponding facilities in England, France and Belgium and was technologically innovative enough for Kaiser Wilhelm II to attend the inauguration ceremony in 1899 in person. Today, the ERIH Anchor Point offers vivid insights into inland shipping and the canal system of the last 100 years.
The Zollverein colliery, the district's only World Heritage Site, doesn't really need much more to be said about it, considering its reputation as the ‘most beautiful colliery in the world’ and the flagship of an industrial region in transition. With the completion of Central Shaft XII in 1932, one of the most efficient coal mines in the world entered the stage of the Ruhr region. Not long after its demise in 1986, today's ERIH Anchor Point began its unprecedented transformation into what is now one of the key monuments of large-scale coal mining.