The Ruhr Museum at the Zollverein Colliery in Essen, Germany

摘要

Visitors arriving at shaft twelve of the Ruhr Museum's Zollverein colliery (coal mine complex) in Essen, Germany, are greeted by an industrial Ges-amtkunstwerk in steel and brick that is well worth the journey in its own right. In its heyday, the Zollverein colliery, which was declared an official World Heritage Site in 2001, fifteen years after its closure, was the apogee of modernity. With its prominent double-rack winding tower, erected in 1930, the mine has recently become a powerful symbol of the "new" Ruhr area. As if Zollverein was not in itself dramatic enough, a fifty-eight-meter-long gangway has been added leading to the elevated entrance level of the museum (twenty-four meters above ground).