Area Bochum

Recklinghausen is the town of the "Ruhrfestspiele" performing arts festival. It was created in 1946 as a result of a historically unique exchange of coal for art between artists and colliers. The oldest arts festival in the Ruhr is now a productive European festival featuring established stars and young artists from all over the world. The Recklinghausen "Kunsthalle" (Art Hall) and the Icon Museum, a museum unique in Europe, both offer art lovers many attractions over and beyond the  mainstream. 

On the way from Bochum to Recklinghausen visitors can find the brand new Archaeology Museum in the town of Herne, an absolute "must" for every visitor to the Cultural Capital. Here the Capital of Culture programme will be featuring an exhibition entitled "AufRuhr! Anno 1225", and the "Early Music Days" jointly sponsored by WDR and the town its-elf. In addition Herne is the gateway to ten other towns lining the Rhine-Herne canal, the showplace of one of the most unusual artistic projects in the Capital of Culture year. 

Bochum is the starting point for a series of exciting trails and paths along the attractive rural countryside to the south of the city. The Ruhr Valley with its ancient fortresses, its historic early coalmines and the picturesque town of Hattingen which regards itself as the "old town" of the Ruhr Metropolis, can all be reached easily by bike, or even by canoe. The former Henrichshütte Ironworks will be the showplace for an exhibition entitled "Heroes"; and the town of Witten, with its Märkisch Museum, offers an annual series of experimental music in the form of the "Witten Festival of New Chamber Music" in cooperation with the WDR broadcasting company.

The centre of festivities in the Ruhr

The cooling tower in the Westpark near the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum, Photo: RTG/Sascha Kreklau

With its post-industrial townscapes, a huge variety of cultural attractions and its important tradition as an independent theatre and nightlife centre, Bochum is a vitally important centre in the Ruhr. 

Here you can find the German Mining Museum with its colossal green pithead to wer. This is where the Ruhr University, the first university in the area, was set up in 1965. And this is the site of the Hall of the Century, a dramatic building with an archaic and almost untameable aura dating back to the age of industry. The monument was redesigned and extended in 2002 by the architect Karl-Heinz Petzinka to present major festivals and events in the region. 

Bochum is the headquarter of the Ruhr-Triennale, the renowned international artistic festival, most of whose programme takes place on former industrial sites (the so-called “cathedrals of industrial heritage”), and focuses on new forms of production and presentation. MELEZ, the festival of immigrant cultures, celebrates the cultural diversity of the metropolitan area in great style with artistic personalities from all over the world. “Bochum Total”, the largest rock and pop festival in Europe, presents progressive and original music in the Bochum Bermuda Triangle, an urban area packed with bars and restaurants. The FIDENA international puppet theatre festival, staged in various venues throughout the city, has recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. As such it is one of the oldest theatre festivals in Germany. 

Bochum will be growing even closer together in 2010. The new inner-city Victoria quarter is being created especially for the Capital of Culture year, to link the “Square of European Promises” by Jochen Gerz with the famous “Schauspielhaus” (municipal theatre) and the Bochum Museum via the legendary Bermuda Triangle. 

A variety of theatres and cabaret venues, the cult bars and restaurants in the Bermuda Triangle and the concentrated creative atmosphere will make the Victoria quarter one of the most exciting places in the Ruhr Metropolis.

The actor and pop singer Herbert Grönemeyer is the author of the unofficial anthem to Bochum. It goes “You may not be a beauty, but at least you have an honest skin…” and audiences at every Grönemeyer concert sing their hearts out until the tears come to their eyes – because it’s true!