The government of North Rhine-Westphalia decided in 1988 to carry out the IBA Emscher Park to achieve a paradigm shift from the “rust belt” towards a green, modern and wealthy metropolitan area.
[1] In the 1980s, the Ruhr region faced growing unemployment rates as a result of the shutdown of most mines and many steel works, environmental problems especially regarding brownfields and waste land and the river Emscher system.
The time stretch of 10 years (1989-1999) was chosen to create changes that do not only present single solutions on buildings but to enable public partners to activate complex interdisciplinary planning processes that work in the long run.
The Emscher Landscape Park was identified to be the 800 km2 of “open space” in the region – agricultural land, forests, brownfields with plant carpet, vegetation at railway embankments, slag heaps, and other more or less green structures.
The classical meaning of a park was not visible here, so the aim was to connect fragmented green structures, develop new ones and make the open spaces accessible for public.
[6] The river Emscher with its approximately 80 km and some hundred kilometres of tributaries was since the 19th century a symbol for the rust belt and ecological problems as the network was working like an open waste water collection and discharge system.
[9] Nevertheless, many improved leisure uses, bike paths and a couple of new buildings were established, for example at Stadthafen Recklinghausen[10] or the new city quarter at harbour Bismarck in Gelsenkirchen[11] Further changes will appear when the canal and its locks are widened until 2025 to be adapted to modern push boats.
Projects like in Bochum “Ökologischer Gewerbepark Zeche Holland”[13] with outstanding stormwater management systems or the business park on the former coal mine Erin[14] in Castrop-Rauxel with the polluted soil being encapsulated in pyramids show some of the innovative approaches.
The search for “new” forms of houses and living together was partly a kind of “back to the roots” as the historical settlements like mine owners and steel companies had created for their workers were becoming very popular again.
The involved cities were Dortmund, Kamen, Bergkamen, Waltrop, Lünen, Castrop-Rauxel, Recklinghausen, Herten, Herne, Bochum, Essen, Mülheim, Gelsenkirchen, Gladbeck, Bottrop, Oberhausen and Duisburg.