Industriemuseum

Description

In Oberhausen on Essener Straße, the Peter-Behrens-Bau houses the central depot of the LVR-Industriemuseum and is also used for exhibitions and depot tours.

The elongated building was erected between 1921 and 1925 as the central main warehouse of the Gutehoffnungshütte, a mining company that was still expanding around the turn of the century and employed roughly 30,000 people. Planning had been interrupted by the war; after the First World War an architectural competition was resumed and a design selected, which had to be adjusted to operational and functional requirements before execution.

Structurally, the warehouse rests on a concrete slab about 90 cm thick with expansion joints to protect against damage caused by mining. The load-bearing structure is a steel skeleton into which around 1,000 tonnes of steel were incorporated; it was manufactured in a dedicated bridge-construction department. The façade is composed of plain brickwork; the clinker facing bricks used in monastery format resulted in additional costs of about 400,000 marks.

The building mass is divided into two side wings and a wider central section by two stair and lift towers. The cubic form, with predominantly square windows set flush with the façade, and the technical stepping of the storeys define the appearance; the building is approximately 86 metres wide, about 25 metres high and comprises six to seven storeys that step back towards the top. Covered ramps for deliveries to freight wagons are provided at the front and rear.

Planned as an ensemble, the warehouse was complemented from the outset by an administration building, a single-storey specialised store for oils and greases, and a gate complex with a gatehouse.

The building survived the Second World War largely unscathed. After the breakup of the concern and the structural changes that followed, it lost its original use; it was protected as an industrial monument in 1989 and thus preserved during the deconstruction of the former steelworks site in the early 1990s. The Landschaftsverband Rheinland acquired the building in 1993; since 1998 it has served the LVR-Industriemuseum as its central depot and partly as exhibition space. The Peter-Behrens-Bau is one of the stops on the Route der Industriekultur.