UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Zollverein

On 14 December 2001, the Zollverein Mine Complex, home to the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen and the red dot design museum, was adopted as part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. Zollverein is accordingly one of only ten modern architectural projects in the world to be accorded this honour.

The world heritage committee praised Zollverein as “a representative example of the development of heavy industry in Europe”. The “architecture of the industrial complex, influenced by the Bauhaus style, which had been an example to modern industrial construction for decades” was noted to be of outstanding value. German President Johannes Rau officially presented the UNESCO plaque to the Zollverein Mine in summer 2002.

The mine complex, built between 1928 and 1932 by industrial architects Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer, was regarded as the most modern in the world, both technically and architecturally. The architects, inspired by the Bauhaus style, arranged the cubic structures around a central courtyard bordered on one side by the pit-head mechanism. The second axis, at a right angle, leads to the boiler house - a masterpiece of form and function.