Front Cover

Publisher Note

Documentary evidence exists of 700 years of coal mining in the Ruhr District of Germany, one of Europe’s largest and most densely populated industrial regions. To this day, approximately 9.6 billion tons of hard coal have been mined in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia. On June 30, 2000, almost 100 years of mining history came to an end in Ahlen with the closure of the Zeche Westfahlen, which had been opened in 1902 with the inauguration of the Bergwerkgesellschaft Westfahlen. The socio-economic impact of this closure has been enormous, and its ramifications continue to reverberate. Japanese artist Naoya Hatakeyama was commissioned by Regionale 2004 to photograph in Ahlen from October 2003 until February the following year, documenting the sites and structures that were home to tens of thousands of workers for over a century. The resulting photographs provide a valuable record of this once all-important industrial area, culminating in the demolition and razing of the entire site. Visiting today, one would never know what had stood in the vast, now empty space.

Artist Monograph

Naoya Hatakeyama

Zeche Westfalen I/II Ahlen

Publisher
Release Place Manchester, United Kingdom
Edition 1st edition
Release Date 2005
Credits
Printrun 2000
Identifiers
ISBN-13: 9781590051511
Open Library ID: OL12367525M
Work  
Topics Germany, Industrial Landscape, Landscape, Mines, Mining, North Rhine-Westphalia, North Rhine-Westphalia E Bassa Sassonia
Methods Photography
Language English
Format Hardcover
Dimensions 11.2 × 13.2 × 0.5 inch
Pages 80