Top 10 Specialty Museums in Ruhr Area, North Rhine-Westphalia

At first sight palatial redbrick facades and artistically adorned gables on buildings dotted around a grassy square are more reminiscent of an aristocratic residence than a coal mine. This was exactly one of the ideas behind the architecture. Today the “mansion of labour” in the west of Dortmund is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and impressive testimonies to Germany’s industrial history. The engine house with its famous Jugendstil doorway is already an icon. But the museum’s outstanding industrial architecture is only one of many different attractive facets. The various sections of the exhibition will take you into a world of harsh working conditions, and the stories of the men and women who worked in coalmining during the 20th century will bring this vividly to life.

The extraction, processing and utilization of mineral geo-resources, subsumed here under the term ‘mining’, is a subject with great significance for the development of human civilization. The global importance of mining is increasing today, and will no doubt continue to do so in future. This is clear from the political campaigns and the intense media reactions associated with issues of raw material supplies and shortages, and also resource conservation (recycling and the use of renewable energy sources). The work of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, as the leading international museum on the mining industry, takes place within this socially relevant context. As one of the Leibniz Association’s research museums, the DBM is devoted to investigating the extraction, processing and utilization of mineral raw materials in the context of social, cultural, ecological and economic dynamics, spanning different historical periods. The museum shows the lasting impact which these processes have had on the development of society, and preserves relevant evidence for future generations. In short: The Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum is the cultural memory of the mining industry.

People began chipping out the first lumps of “black gold” from the hillsides of the Ruhrgebiet around 300 years ago. The Nightingale Colliery will take you back to the time when miners could walk straight inside the galleries to get at the coal; and later sunk the first shafts below ground. Equipped with a helmet and pit lamp visitors can take a walk down the narrow gangway of our mining gallery to a genuine coal streak and experience the unique atmosphere of early mining. One of the oldest hauling engines in the region can be seen in operation in the engine house.

For 150 years the sparks were flying at the blast furnaces at the Henrichshutte ironworks when the kilns were opened to spew out the molten iron. Today we have brought this authentic historic ironworks back to life. Over 10,000 people once worked here on the gigantic site, producing coke, and casting, rolling and forging iron and steel. The museum has a number of different trails where visitors can learn more about the dif ferent work processes. They can also take the glass elevator to the top of the oldest existing blast furnace in the region, watch our steel casting demonstrations, go on a torchlight tour of the works at night, or simply sit back and enjoy a piano recital in the blowing house.