Only when the investor is a client, the developer is a local planning director, the buyer an owner, the architect a master builder and the property a house, only when the city authorities understand that building culture is more important than jobs at any price, when residents and employees feel like citizens, feel at home, and stay for a long time, do new buildings emerge that also become cities.
RuhrTriennale
Art was already being very successfully used as a driving force for regional and landscape development during the period of the IBA Emscher Park. After the IBA ended however, the issue arose of the prospects for those industrial monuments that had been reclaimed for art. The idea of a decentralised art festival for the Ruhr area, the RuhrTriennnale, was born.
Fascinating halls and disused coal mines and power stations that had been saved from decay and brought to the aesthetic awareness of the public turned out to be predestined for new forms of artistic examination.
These performance venues evolved into seminal features of the festival, which is oriented towards the entire region. The Century Hall (Jahrhunderthalle) in Bochum, the former Zollverein coal mine and coking plant, the Duisburg-Nord Country Park, the Zweckel Machine Hall (Maschinenhalle Zweckel) in Gladbeck, the Gasometer in Oberhausen, and many other former mining and heavy industry sites form a globally unique industrial architecture ensemble. Its inspirational effect and power of suggestion on the one hand, and artistic possibilities and challenges on the other, were the initial ‘sparks’ that started Europe’s most unusual theatre and music festival.
