Werdendes Ruhrgebiet

The exhibition rooms were created through the connection of former coal bunkers. They formed a cathedral-like three-nave space. The exhibition architecture reacted to the defined structure of the room with installations extending over several room sectors. Flat platforms with display cases and plinths were meandering through the room creating interior spaces dissociated from the structure of the former coal bunkers. The way through the exhibition was in the form of a spiral from the right to the left and then the middle of the room, where the most notable and precious exhibits, the early medieval items from Werden and Essen abbeys, were presented.

The entrance was marked by three ramps lined with prehistoric archaeological finds. A lattice of light spots extended through the entire exhibition. The light coming through the laser-cut long slits in the backlit steel panels created wide illuminated zones in the room, which, in order to protect the exhibits, was otherwise in semi darkness.

As a reference to the exhibition room, an industrial monument in the New Objectivity style of the 1920s, room dividers made of black-painted industrial chains marked the limits of the room and divided it into sections. These “chain curtains” recalled the chainmail shirts worn by medieval warriors and also their function as components of the bridges, boat lifts and conveyor systems associated with early industrial and transport architecture.

The exhibition made considerable demands in terms of logistics and protection of the objects. The 800 or more exhibits from the third to eleventh centuries, consisting of early manuscripts and music scores from the region and extremely rare church treasures, were insured for over 70 million euros.