UNESCO Word Heritage Site: Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex: #03 - Coking Plant

October 2019 · 3 min read · Essen

Hello lovely Steemians !

I would like to present to you the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex (“Zeche Zollverein”). This huge complex is located in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany. The complex inscribed in the year 2001 in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. You can roughly divide the whole complex, which is the largest on of its kind in Europe, into three parts. Those are the Coal Mine Shaft 1/2/8 (since 1847), the Coal Mine Shaft 12 (since 1932) and the Coking Plant (since 1961).

I would like to show to you all of those location. However, as those will feature more than 100 pictures I will divide it into several post for the sake of readability, which I will sort chronological. This posts topic is the Coking Plant.

Coking Plant

After the opening of Shaft 12, the prodiction of coal from the whole Zollverein Coal Mining Industrial Complex grew immense. Thus they opened the new central Coking Plant in 1961 with had a total of 192 ovens. It was designed by Fritz Schupp which already designed to highly profitable Shaft 12.

This extremely large plant was one of the most productive coking plants worldwide and hosted more than 1,000 workers and yielded an output of up to 8,600 tons of coke a day on the so-called dark side. The white side of the plant produced side products such as ammonia, raw benzene and raw tar, which were used in another branch of german industry, namely the chemical industry.

Nowadays

Similiar to Shaft 1/2/8 which host the Pact, an artist house, platform for contemporary dance and performance known for its groundbreaking developments in dance, performance, theater, media and visual arts, and Shaft 12, which hosts the Ruhr Museum, a permanent exhibition with more than 6,000 exhibits dedicated to the fascinating history from the formation of coal 300 million years ago to the current structural change towards the Ruhr Metropolis, also the Coking Mine features some great cultural aspects.

You can find a huge hall on the southern site of the plant which shows renovated equipment on the second floor that you can visit. It is mainly used for artist or lobbyist conventions but out of event time it is free to walk in. The first floor also shows some equipment, but this time in the light of coloured lamps which really looks impressive.

One thing that I really enjoyed was this old rusty railroad transporter that was running through the whole complex back in the days.

I really hope that you enjoyed the third part of my tour through the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Zollverein Coal Mining Industrial Complex featuring the Coking Plant from 1961. I always like to take a visit there. It us such a peacful place, fully packed with history.