Reports: A Hundred Days at the "Zollverein" - Architecture and Design at Europe's Most Attractive Coal Mine
Coal was mined and processed at the "Zoll-verein" for 136 years, down to its closure in 1986. With the construction of the Zollverein School and the opening of the design and architectural exhibition "Entry", a major part of a long restructuring process has come to a end. Pit XII with its tower, built by Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer between 1928 and 1932, is still emblematic of the mine. In 1997, Norman Foster converted the former boiler house into the Design Centre North Rhine-Westphalia; but only since UNESCO declared the mine to be part of the World Cultural Heritage in 2001 has Brussels provided adequate support funds, allowing a long-held wish of the region to be realized, namely the creation of a museum for the natural and cultural history of the Ruhr area (see Detail 6/1997).
