Zollverein
This weeks’ destination of choice has been the no-longer beating heart of the Ruhr valley, I’ve been working on the outskirts of Essen and staying in Gelsenkirchen. Our venue is a disused coal mine and coking plant that at on point was one of the engines of the third Reich.
The site was abandoned quite a few years ago, and probably because it isn’t really near to anywhere, was simply left to decay. At some point, an enlightened person got up on his hind legs and said; ‘I know, why don’t we use the site for cultural purposes instead of just letting it rot?’ The result was Zollverein; on site there are design museums, working artists and all sorts, all connected by, and using the existing industrial brick buildings. To put this into some sort of context, the site occupies an area larger than Central Park in New York; it is some eighty kilometres by thirty. It is now strangely restful, the sort of peace that comes after a natural disaster. Now silver birch trees colonise the abandoned rail tracks, rabbits abound and the distant shrieking of over-excited children has replaced what must in its day have been a hellish environment; coal trucks continually rumbling and clanking overhead on the chain driven tracks, vast machines transferring coal from one area to another, the coking plant belching fumes and sparks, and everything covered in a fine black dust from the coal. It is a testament to natures’ ability to recover, although I suspect that parts of the land hereabouts are still quite toxic.
PACT (The centre for choreographic research and performance), where we are performing occupies the showers for the No.2 mine shaft, 2000 men at a time were able to shower, and store their clothes in the room that is now the main performance space. Our only gripe is that the venue has remarkably few social facilities (with this company this means bars), there is a bar, but it only opens for the performances, and a café which closes at 5.00 on the dot. The option of returning to Gelsenkirchen, a fifteen minute tram ride, and reputedly the poorest city in Germany, does not enthral. This is ‘gastarbeiter’ country, there are more Turks and Turkish kebab shops here than I have seen anywhere else, I think it would be possible to have a kebab three times a day for a week and not revisit the same shop. Otherwise, the town is unremarkable, clean, and deserted after nine in the evening. There are myriad small bars occupied by what are obviously ex-miners, who sit, drink and chat for much of the day.
This will be our last night tonight, in a strange sort of way I will be sorry to leave, I find industrial decay curiously attractive, and the fact that it is being put to good use is heartening. This of course is in the area that was largely flattened by the allied bombing, and the very visible lack of many old buildings is a testament to its brutal efficiency. That they managed to miss a site the size of Zollverein which must have been working flat out and constantly pumping smoke into the air, is a complete mystery to me.
posted by Lampy @ 3/30/2007 05:16:00 pm
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