Places of interest / Rheinisches Industriemuseum

Oberhausen is home to the main office of the Rheinisches Industriemuseum. Organised as a decentralised museum, it includes six individual museums in Rhineland, all housed in former factory buildings, highlighting the historical development of different industries here. The Industriemuseum is sponsored by the Landschaftsverband Rheinland. In August of 1997, the museum opened its exhibit on the history of the iron and steel industry in the Ruhr region and Rhine at the rolling mill of the former Altenberg zinc factory that was closed in 1981. The museum also takes care of the archive of the former iron smeltery “St. Antony-Hütte” and the “Volksmuseum Eisenheim” in Oberhausen. The depository of the Industriemuseum is located in the central warehouse of the former Gutehoffnungshütte on Essener Strasse (Peter-Behrens-Lagerhaus). At the Rheinisches Industriemuseum in Oberhausen, visitors literally have 150 years of history of the iron and steel industry, which played a major role in the lives of many thousand people in the regions along Rhine and Ruhr, lying directly at their feet from an iron footbridge spanning high up in the air an exhibition area of 3,500 sq. m. The distance is necessary sometimes, especially when trying to take in at a single glance the large-scale objects in their length and breadth: steel rolling mills, steam hammer, flywheel, an interactive control station simulation for a blast furnace and other relics of the Ruhr region’s industrial past, which make up the core of the exhibition. Seeing such objects at close range is worth it. While standing under a 20-ton behemoth like the steam hammer, which dates back to 1910, may make you a bit uneasy, you have a better understanding of the brute force this colossus packed to shape red-hot steel blocks. Equally impressive are the series 50 steam locomotives, built by Krupp in 1941, and a two-reel rotary press, built in 1925. The museum has also prepared new units to illustrate the history of the heavy industry that characterised the barren land of this industrial region between the Rhine and Ruhr for a period of 150 years. Technical developments, production methods and products as well as their impact on city and region, people and environment, life and work are highlighted in the exhibits and with the aid of audiovisual media. The mansion of the owner of the former Altenberg zinc factory today houses the central administrative office of the Rheinisches Industriemuseum with library and archive. It also includes the restoration workshops, the technical services department and photo lab.