Salzlager/Salzfabrik Zollverein

The saline storage facility, built in 1958, belongs to the complex of the Kokerei Zollverein - which came into existence when being connected to the colliery tariff union, pit XII. It belongs to the so-called»white side« of the coking plant.The »white side« houses the gas purification facilities and the facilities for the further processing of byproducts that arise from the production of coke on the »black side«.
The saline plant is part of a three-part building complex consisting of the actual ammoniac plant, the saline storage plant and the shipment facilities. While the ammoniac plant and the shipment facilities were built as multi-storey reinforced concrete buildings with flat roofs and brick facades, the intermediate wing, the saline storage facility, is desigend as a reinforced concrete hall with a ridged roof. Strong support columns that get thinner upwards structure the longitudinal sides of the building whose concrete facades remain unblinded.
Until the 1980s, ammoniac sulphate was produced here, a fertiliser extracted from ammoniac and the self-produced suplhuric acid. Due to the strong decline in prices of the ammoniac sulphate, way was given to disaggregate the ammoniac into nitrogen and hydrogen at the saline plant and to use the emerging splitting gas. In the last years up to closing down of the coking plant in 1993 the saline storage facilities and the saline plant were used for the storage of spare parts. The final retrieval of being closed down took place in 1998 with the transferring of the coking plant into the property of the foundation of industrial preservation of historical monuments and historical culture, the Stiftung Industriedenkmalpflege und Geschichtskultur, which consecrates itself to the preservation of the industrial plant, establishes new utilisations in the historic buildings and which makes them gradually accessible to the public. In the year 2000 the Kokerei Zollverein was listed as historic landmark.
Together with the coal-mine tariff Union Zeche Zollverein which was risen to a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO the Kokerei stands for industrial history and structural change at the same time. Projects of contemporary art as well as theatre stagings continually contribute to a reinterpretation of the facility. In the saline storage facility of the coking plant that was specially rebuilt for this purpose the room installation Palast der Projekte by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov can be viewed. In one part of the saline storage facility Sebastian Nübling stages Next Level Parzival by Tim Staffel. In the neighbouring saline plant Hanns Elsner’s Hollywood Elegien was staged already in the first year of the RuhrTriennale 2002. This year, a three-storey room installation with reference to the Middles Ages, Teatrum mundi, can be inspected by the audience.