Bergbaumuseum / German Mining Museum Bochum | CROSS Architecture

Museum building – the museum as tangible exhibit

The design takes up mining-related themes – a massive volume, which is penetrated by passageways, tunnels and ramps, lets the museum become a large cutaway model and self-referential exhibit. The visible “tunnel system” interconnects the internal exhibition halls and offers the visitors views to the city – a piece of identity for the Ruhr area is manifested in a building, which has won several architecture awards.

Mining experience

This building ought to be fun! About 400,000 people come to the mining museum every year, and for many schools a visit to the museum is a fixed component of their curriculum. The children not only take along the experience of mining, but also an architectural experience, and they enjoy discovering the exhibition due to the unusual circulation concept.

Monolith with recesses

The column-free interiors were stipulated by the user, while the glazed recesses along the circulation tunnels are a consequence of the design concept. In an integral, partnership-based planning process with specialist planners, we conceived the building as a monolithic box with pile foundation, where walls, ceilings and the roof form a homogeneous support structure.