Industrial monument
Sep. 5th, 2015 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckMany pictures below.
Arrival.
Doppelbock winding tower of Shaft 12 is impressive:
The whole complex of Zollverein Coal Mine and Coking Plant, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, consists of many - mostly very large - buildings with lots of growing plant life in between.
Here are some impressions from our wanderings:
One of the old mining shafts which continued to be used even after the far superior Shaft 12 had been built in 1932.
The coking plant:
Window reflecting parts of the coking plant.
At the coking plant there is also this small swimming pool - not an original feature, but part of several attempts by artists to re-imagine the place (which include the ferris wheel seen in an earlier picture - currently not in use). We had lunch there and the daring ones went for a swim.
Walking back towards the coal washery:
We got a tour inside the coal washery:
A lot of it is very dark - it wasn't a nice place to work in this most efficient coal mine and coal washery - it had been built with profit in mind, not a thought lost on the comfort of the workers.
Simple yet effective animations (with added but muted sound) showed us how the machines worked:
Some of the place looks like it has just been abandoned:
This had been carefully prepared for visitors (by the time the mine closed down they had long since stopped using the small waggons in favour of large containers).
The complex also houses the Ruhrmuseum:
It has a very impressive staircase (and that's all we saw of it!):
We also went up on the roof:
The view helps you realize how big the buildings are:
We saw the winding mechanism in action - Shaft 12 is still used as water drainage, so workers go down and up, but it is closed for visitors.
We didn't see half of the site - there is a design museum, too, for example.
Arrival.
Doppelbock winding tower of Shaft 12 is impressive:
The whole complex of Zollverein Coal Mine and Coking Plant, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, consists of many - mostly very large - buildings with lots of growing plant life in between.
Here are some impressions from our wanderings:
One of the old mining shafts which continued to be used even after the far superior Shaft 12 had been built in 1932.
The coking plant:
Window reflecting parts of the coking plant.
At the coking plant there is also this small swimming pool - not an original feature, but part of several attempts by artists to re-imagine the place (which include the ferris wheel seen in an earlier picture - currently not in use). We had lunch there and the daring ones went for a swim.
Walking back towards the coal washery:
We got a tour inside the coal washery:
A lot of it is very dark - it wasn't a nice place to work in this most efficient coal mine and coal washery - it had been built with profit in mind, not a thought lost on the comfort of the workers.
Simple yet effective animations (with added but muted sound) showed us how the machines worked:
Some of the place looks like it has just been abandoned:
This had been carefully prepared for visitors (by the time the mine closed down they had long since stopped using the small waggons in favour of large containers).
The complex also houses the Ruhrmuseum:
It has a very impressive staircase (and that's all we saw of it!):
We also went up on the roof:
The view helps you realize how big the buildings are:
We saw the winding mechanism in action - Shaft 12 is still used as water drainage, so workers go down and up, but it is closed for visitors.
We didn't see half of the site - there is a design museum, too, for example.
