The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex (German Zeche Zollverein) is a large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

The first coal mine on the premises was founded in 1847, and mining activities took place from 1851 until December 23, 1986. For decades, starting in the late 1950s, the two parts of the site, Zollverein Coal Mine and Zollverein Coking Plant (erected 1957–1961, closed on June 30, 1993), ranked among the largest of their kinds in Europe. Shaft 12, built in the New Objectivity style, was opened in 1932 and is considered an architectural and technical masterpiece, earning it a reputation as the "most beautiful coal mine in the world".

Because of its architecture and testimony to the development of heavy industry in Europe, the industrial complex was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on December 14, 2001, and is one of the anchor points of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Tags:   Kokerei Zollverein Essen Germany mining unesco monument

© All Rights Reserved

Ruhr Museum in the Coal washing plant
(More images in my series Zollverein)

The Zollverein Coal Mine Complex in Essen is one of the most impressive surviving examples of industrial culture from the modern era.

The museum building, the former coal washing plant, is 60 metres long, 30 metres wide and 40 metres high, making it the largest building at the Zollverein coal mine. In operation, it was a large machine used for sorting, classifying, intermediate storage and distribution of the hard coal. The structural design is completely subordinate to these functions.

The conversion of the building by the architects Rem Koolhaas and Heinrich Böll takes account of the preservation order. They opened up the building from top to bottom - analogous to the original production flow. The public is first transported to the 24 metre level by escalator (or decides to walk these endless stairs ...) and enters the coal washing plant in the Zollverein International Visitor Centre.

The levels above the 24 metre level, with their largely preserved machinery, are part of the Zollverein Monument Trail and, on the 30 metre level, house the Portal of Industrial Heritage, which provides information about the impressive landscape of industrial museums and monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia and the structural transformation of the Metropole Ruhr.
The floors below the visitor centre are reserved for the exhibition rooms and depots of the Ruhr Museum. Where coal was once stored, cultural assets are now preserved and presented. Spectacular museum rooms have been created in the former industrial building that a new building would never have been able to offer. They alone are a great attraction for visitors.

© All Rights Reserved

© All Rights Reserved

Ruhr Museum in the Coal washing plant

The Zollverein Coal Mine Complex in Essen (More images in my series Zollverein) is one of the most impressive surviving examples of industrial culture from the modern era.

The museum building, the former coal washing plant, is 60 metres long, 30 metres wide and 40 metres high, making it the largest building at the Zollverein coal mine. In operation, it was a large machine used for sorting, classifying, intermediate storage and distribution of the hard coal. The structural design is completely subordinate to these functions.

The conversion of the building by the architects Rem Koolhaas and Heinrich Böll takes account of the preservation order. They opened up the building from top to bottom - analogous to the original production flow. The public is first transported to the 24 metre level by escalator (or decides to walk these endless stairs ...) and enters the coal washing plant in the Zollverein International Visitor Centre.

The levels above the 24 metre level, with their largely preserved machinery, are part of the Zollverein Monument Trail and, on the 30 metre level, house the Portal of Industrial Heritage, which provides information about the impressive landscape of industrial museums and monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia and the structural transformation of the Metropole Ruhr.
The floors below the visitor centre are reserved for the exhibition rooms and depots of the Ruhr Museum. Where coal was once stored, cultural assets are now preserved and presented. Spectacular museum rooms have been created in the former industrial building that a new building would never have been able to offer. They alone are a great attraction for visitors.

© All Rights Reserved

The Zollverein Coal Mine Complex in Essen (More images in my series Zollverein) is one of the most impressive surviving examples of industrial culture from the modern era.

With their design of the central shaft facilities for Shaft XII, built between 1928 and 1932, Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer created the single most important part of the complex, both technically and architecturally. The industrial monument has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001.

The site of the Zollverein coal mine and coking plant stands symbolises industrial history and structural transformation in the economy. Here, Schupp and Kremmer created a high-performance industrial complex with clear aesthetics and a high degree of functionality. Symmetry, axiality and gradation of scale – the organising principles of the modernist formal idiom – came into their own here in a new context.

The curtain wall façades, designed in the style of New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) and made of a steel framework inset with clinker bricks, earned the colliery the reputation of being “the most beautiful coal mine in the world”, even back in its working days. Clearly visible from afar, the 55-metre-high double winding tower rises above the other buildings as an icon of mining architecture and a symbol for the entire Ruhr region. Years later, Fritz Schupp built the Zollverein Coking Plant, which went into operation in 1961, in the same style as the coal mine complex. In its day, the mine was regarded as the largest and most efficient one in the world. An era came to an end when the coal mine ceased operations in 1986 and the coking plant in 1993. A total of 600,000 people were employed here and coal was last extracted from a depth of 1,000 metres.

In the context of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park, the facility, which is protected as a historical monument, was promoted as a model project; the first phase of refurbishment began in 1989. Today, the Zollverein complex is the central anchor point of the Route of Industrial Heritage – a 400-kilometre-long trail along the industrial and cultural heritage of the Ruhr region. Based on a master plan by Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA in collaboration with the architectural firm of Heinrich Böll, the site was transformed with conversions and new buildings by Norman Foster and SANAA into a site for culture, business and education. Today, the Zollverein is a popular tourist destination that is home to the Ruhr Museum, the Red Dot Design Museum, the Zollverein Monument Trail, and the new Folkwang University of the Arts with its design department, plus the studios and ateliers of four dozen creative companies.

© All Rights Reserved