Where on earth is the Ruhr Metropolis?

“Essen for the Ruhr” is a child of the 21st century. The Ruhr is the largest city in Germany. The third largest urban conurbation in Europe comprises 53 towns and cities containing 5.300.000 people from over 170 nations – all within the “borders” of what was originally known as the Ruhr Coal Settlement Association, created in 1920 and now known as the Ruhr Regional Association. 

The region has been shaped by the imposing legacy of the industrial age and the unlimited potentials of the post-industrial era. And if it is true that the major challenges and development opportunities of modern societies can be observed (and must be tackled) in our towns and cities, this is especially true in the case of the Ruhr region. 

In the mid-19th century one of the most vibrant industrial regions in Europe sprang up rapidly from the large number of small settlements that had been created around hundreds of coal mines and steelworks. Following the decline of the coal and steel industry in the 1960s, the Ruhr region has transformed itself equally rapidly from a grimy mining area to our modern urban centre based on the service industries. Building on the success of the Emscher Park International Building Exhibition 1989 – 99 (IBA), “Essen for the Ruhr” aims once more to use building culture as the motor for change.

   

A powerful area of Europe is growing up “deep in the West”

Europe is the location of “Essen for the Ruhr”. In the future the axis linking Warsaw, Berlin and Brussels will not be able to exist without the Ruhr Metropolis. Here, where cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Cologne and Antwerp are practically a stone’s throw away from each other, you can find the headquarters of ten of the 100 companies with the highest turnover in Germany. This is where important European trading flows are organised. This is where future energy policies in Europe are being created. And this is where five universities and ten polytechnics, alongside around 100 research institutes, are working hard to put Europe into a position to be able to survive global competition in the future, whilst remaining true to its traditional values. 

The power of “Essen for the Ruhr” lies in its capacity for change through culture. The European Capital of Culture will embody the result of many years of radical transformation in the Ruhr. For years, hundreds of cultural institutions, artists and cultural workers in the Ruhr Metropolis have been at the root of this transformation, and together they make up one of the richest cultural topographies in the whole of Europe. 

On the basis of selected projects “Essen for the Ruhr” will be showing the current state of play in the region. At the same time it will serve as a temporary high point in a process of constant development. The aim is – by selecting specific projects – to establish our cultural activities in Europe on a long-term basis far beyond 2010. The Ruhr will be continuing its optimistic progress into the future with the power of the European Capital of Culture.

   

Unfinished, inspiring and surprising: Europe’s new metropolitan area

The aims of “Essen for the Ruhr” go far beyond a single year of cultural events. The European Capital of Culture will also change the material face of the region. Important infrastructure projects are already underway. These include the implementation of a decentralised geographical concept, and visitor centres in Duisburg, Oberhausen, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund that will, for the first time, provide the polycentric urban area with a tourist infrastructure. 

Four so-called “programme passages” will transform the most important East-West arteries in the urban region into exciting and eventful theme routes. 

The European Capital of Culture has created a climate of optimism and renewal. This has inspired the commitment of both private and public sponsors in an extraordinary fashion. Major building projects are already underway even before the start of the Cultural Capital year. A new building to house the Folkwang Museum in Essen will be completed in 2009. An old brewery tower, known as the “Dortmund U” is being redesigned into an 80.000 square metre exhibition centre for contemporary art and a regional centre for the creative economy. And the Küppersmühle Museum of Modern Art in Duisburg will be given a spectacular extension. New aesthetic buildings are beginning to impose themselves on places where the industrial past has left its ruthless scars. Internationally famous architects like Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, David Chipperfield, Herzog & de Meuron, and Ortner & Ortner – to name but a few – are some of the many architectural protagonists behind this “art of transformation”.

  

The metropolis of possibilities

“Essen for the Ruhr” will be the first European Capital of Culture to integrate the creative economy into its overall concept. For the arts, culture, creativity and new ideas are powerful motors for technological and economic innovation processes. They play a central role in creating new jobs and sustainable structures in the region. 

“Essen for the Ruhr” will permanently strengthen the region’s creative and economic powers, highlight the activities of the 20.000 companies which are nationally and internationally active in this sector, bundle them into a synergy, and create a network of local authority structures. 

The polycentric area with its population of over 5.000.000 can and will be undertaking the pioneering enterprise of turning visions into reality and creating a model for other European metropolitan areas to follow. 

So where can you find the Ruhr Metropolis? There, where the region is reinventing itself with the power of the European Capital of Culture. There, where new ideas and opportunities are growing. Precisely there, where the future is being created.