Industrial Architecture by Schupp and Kremmer
[ M I N E S ]
Introduction

The architects Schupp and Kremmer played a major role in the design of the industrial architecture of the 20th century in the Ruhr Area. Major industrial complexes have been designed by them or influenced by their style of bringing the functional and the art aspects together. It hasn't really been a "form follows function" or vice versa aspect, but rather the approach of trying to combine both form and function.

Coal Mine Zollverein Shaft 12
Coal Mine Zollverein Shaft 12
 Zollverein XII

The most important work of Schupp and Kremmer is beyond any doubt the design of the coal mining plant of Zollverein XII. It has been constructed during the late 1920s and early 1930s and has been regarded since the as the "most beautiful and largest coal mining plant of the world". When the site was finished it was the most modern coal mining plant both from a technical and from an arts point of view - it overcame the technical standards of a coal mining plant of that age as well as it did overcome all the architectural considerations of such an industrial installation.

It did not only quadruple the hitherto known benchmark of a mining shaft getting 3,000 tons of coal to the surface per day - it pushed the Jugendstily style of architecture aside and introduced a new, cubistic style which as well gave and still gives the visitor a vision of a medieval chateau with the winding tower atop of a large place behind the entrance of the mining site.

The utmost importance of the Zollverein XII mining site and the accompanied Zollverein 1/2 mining site and the Zollverein cokery to the world's industrial architecture and technology has been recognised in December 2001 by the UNESCO by awarding this site the status of a world heritage site.

Pluto 2

After the design and construction of Zollverein XII several other mining sites have been designed by the architects Schupp and Kremmer either together or by one of them working alone. The winding tower and shaft hall above shaft 2 of the Pluto coal mine in Gelsenkirchen is one example of the continuous design style which first has been tried with Zollverein.
Coal Mine Pluto Shaft 2
Coal Mine Pluto Shaft 2
Coal Mine Germania Shaft 5
Coal Mine Germania Shaft 5
 Germania 5

The winding tower above shaft Germania 5 was another example of the design style which started in Zollverein. Although the Germania coal mine has been completely closed and destructed in 1974, the impressive winding tower is still alive - it has been torn apart and built up again above the coal mining museum in Bochum, serving since 1974 as a new impressive landmark for Bochum, which was once one of the largest coal mining towns in Germany.
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