The former coal-washing plant provides an edgy setting for the Ruhr Museum. Exhibits span the history of the Ruhr Region in an easily accessible and engaging fashion. Just as the coal was transported on conveyor belts, a long escalator whisks you up to the foyer from where you descend into the dark bowels of the building. With its raw stone walls, steep steel stairs, shiny aluminium ducts and industrial machinery, the space itself has all the drama and mystique of a movie set (Blade Runner comes to mind).
Don't miss the section showing the poor conditions of the workers and how an effort to strike for better conditions in the 1920s was brutally crushed. It still has echoes today.
