A post-industrial mindscape? The mainstreaming and touristification of industrial heritage in the Ruhr

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the representations of regional identity throughout the Ruhr region's ongoing transition to a postindustrial landscape and asks to what extent industrial heritage plays a crucial role in shaping that identity. The mainstreaming of industrial heritage was also the beginning of a stronger touristification of the Ruhr. The concept of the Ruhr as a distinct region emerged much later during the interwar period. In the course of its deindustrialization during the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, industrial heritage came to occupy an essential role in the limited identity repertoire of the Ruhr. The coal crisis of 1957/1958 is often seen as the vanishing point of the history of de-industrialization of the Ruhr. The damages of the industrialization were to be eliminated and a structural action program for the future viability of the region introduced.

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