Hoesch-Museum

Description

The Hoesch Museum in Dortmund situates its collection in the historic gatehouse of the Westfalenhütte, thereby making accessible 160 years of corporate, technological, and social history of steelworking in the context of the city's history.

The museum is located at the former works entrance; the gatehouse was built by a Dortmund architects' collective between 1912 and 1914. Originally the building served to control plant operations and contained rooms for the works police, a detention cell, the payroll office, and a dining hall. The building's present condition dates from alterations in the 1950s; since 1988 the building has been protected as a historic monument.

As early as the late 1980s the gatehouse was used by the Hoesch Museum and its associated archive. After a corporate takeover, museum operations were discontinued in 1992. Through the cooperation of former employees, the Museums für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Dortmund and an economic history foundation, the building was able to reopen on 23 October 2005. The museum is run by a support association that organises its operations with numerous volunteer staff.

Since 2023 the museum's offerings have been complemented by an original steel bungalow from the Dortmund district of Hombruch, of which around 200 examples were erected in the 1960s. The steel house from 1966 was opened in May 2025; it is made of the composite material Platal. In a permanent cultural-historical exhibition the bungalow illustrates the history of industrial housing, the development of prefabricated and steel houses, and the significance of steel for architecture and construction. The bathroom and kitchen are partly preserved in their original condition and complement the exhibition spaces.