Working in the park

For more than 150 years, industrial structures in the Ruhr area were defined and controlled by major companies in the iron, steel and mining industries. The decline of these industries brought with it significant problems – above-average regional unemployment, a lack of alternative, existing industrial structures and the functional loss of huge areas of industrial wasteland in city centres.

Renouncing earlier subsidy strategies directly associated with industry, the response of the IBA Emscher Park centred on a high-quality development of possible industrial sites in the central Ruhr area as well as the highlighting of the region’s structural and infrastructural qualities.
Industry-related development concepts and the integration of income-generating measures ought to support the structural change in industry. Also added was architecture which created unique new spaces for research, development and production at the same location. As a result, business, industrial and science parks have evolved on former industrial sites in the centres of the cities. Associated with unusually high environmental, architectural and urban development standards, sites were developed with an appearance more evocative of city parks. Consequently, they are also used by the public.

The basis for all developed architectural concepts was a competition as a project-oriented readjustment process. The approach of identifying existing architecture as historically valuable, and retaining and integrating it as far as possible, does not just lead to innovative, architectural solutions incorporating existing structures, but also provides necessary identification moments for the rediscovery of urban spaces as business and industrial parks.