Qualla: Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Spyrosdrakopoulos, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer were architects, but in 1928 they were given a contract that was effectively engineering: design a complete coal-mining shaft complex from scratch, the new Shaft 12 for the Zollverein colliery in Essen. They built it in red brick and exposed steel, in the spare, rectilinear language of the New Objectivity movement that grew out of the Bauhaus. When it opened in 1932 it was the largest, most modern, and most productive hard-coal mine in the world. It also happened to look like a piece of monumental industrial sculpture. *Die schoenste Zeche der Welt*, the local nickname goes - 'the most beautiful coal mine in the world.' For once, the marketing is fair.

Image: Spyrosdrakopoulos | CC BY-SA 4.0

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: Bauhaus Underground

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unukorno, Public domain. The first coal mine on the Zollverein premises opened in 1847 and pulled coal from 1851 onward, but the mine that the world remembers is Shaft 12. Schupp and Kremmer's design rejected the chaotic pile-up of buildings that characterized most 19th-century collieries. They organized...

Image: Unukorno | Public domain

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: The Productive Years

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Flöper, CC BY-SA 4.0. From 1932 onward, Zollverein was an industrial machine of extraordinary scale. After the 1957-1961 expansion that added the Zollverein Coking Plant, the two halves of the site became among the largest of their kind in Europe. At peak the coking plant employed around 1,000 workers...

Image: Stefan Flöper | CC BY-SA 4.0

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: 23 December 1986

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 23 December 1986, the last shift came up from Shaft 12. Zollverein closed. It was the last active coal mine in Essen. The coking plant kept running until 30 June 1993, then it closed too. The miners who walked off that final shift in December 1986 were the last in a continuous...

Image: Martin Falbisoner | CC BY-SA 3.0

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: Saved, Strangely

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Globe-trotter, CC BY-SA 3.0. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia did something almost no government does with closed industrial sites: it bought the place in late 1986, almost immediately after the last shift came up, and declared Shaft 12 a heritage monument. The obligation was to preserve the site in its o...

Image: Globe-trotter | CC BY-SA 3.0

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: The Mine That Became a Design Museum

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mutantram, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today Zollverein holds the Ruhr Museum - the regional museum of the Ruhrgebiet, in the former coal washery, with 6,000 exhibits tracing the area from the formation of coal 300 million years ago to the present. The Red Dot Design Museum occupies the converted boiler house, display...

Image: Mutantram | CC BY-SA 4.0