Once a gigan­tic high-​performance machin­ery, daily output of 8,500 tons of coke, as well as ammo­niac, bitu­men, and ben­zene, work­place for 1,000 people. Since 1999 open to the public. Today devel­op­ment area for the next build­ing stage on the World Her­itage Site.

The coking plant devel­op­ment con­cept has been pre­sented by ASTOC , the cologne based office for which I am work­ing. It is the basis for future land-​use plan. Tenor: The coking plant should become an ani­mated area, whilst main­tain­ing its indus­trial struc­tures. An urban space for cul­ture and work. Varied, self-​dynamic, but easily com­pre­hen­si­ble and gen­er­at­ing an identity.

The “blue axis” along the row of coke ovens which simul­ta­ne­ously marks the bound­ary between the black and the white side*1, is assigned a spe­cial mean­ing . It is the entrance, show­piece and – due to its loca­tion at the row of the ovens – recep­tion room of the mon­u­ment coking plant.

The siev­ing plant in the centre of the “blue axis” will be the knowledge-​oriented entry towards the coking plant as well as bridge towards the sur­round­ing. Info point, access to the his­tory of the coking plant, edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tion, con­fer­ence room. Link to “Nord­stern­park” in Gelsenkirchen and to Emscher Land­scape Park ( see also Thomas’ arti­cle “Emscherpark – Indus­trial Her­itage Done Right”) in the entire north­ern Ruhr area.

Fun­da­men­tal ideas of the devel­op­ment con­cept: Preser­va­tion of the exist­ing struc­tures, mod­er­ate addi­tions, con­ver­sion, set­tle­ment. Pri­mar­ily enter­prises from the cul­tural indus­try and the ser­vice sector. New devel­op­ment areas adjoin the west. Fixed within the devel­op­ment line between the mon­u­ment and adja­cent forest. Vari­able regard­ing the divi­sion of plots. *2

*1
black side: pro­duc­tion of coke
white side: fur­ther pro­cess­ing to gas

*2
Extracts from the Entwick­lungs­ge­sellschaft Zollverein