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Fig. 4. Turning the first sod (from left to right): Dietmar Dieckmann, Bochum city councillor, Prof. Sunhild Kleingärtner, scientific director of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Ina Brandes, North Rhine-Westphalia’s minister for culture and science, and Bärbel Bergerhoff-Wodopia, member of the board of executives of the RAG-Stiftung and chair of the museum’s board of trustees. Photo: DBM

Future project of mining history: ground-breaking ceremony for new research and storage building

The Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum (DBM) – Leibniz Research Museum for Geo-resources, Bochum/Germany, is expanding its infrastructure: On 19th July 2024, construction began on a new research building with an integrated depot. Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Bärbel Bergerhoff-Wodopia, member of the board of executives of the RAG-Stiftung and chairwoman of the museum’s board of trustees, were also on hand in Bochum for the occasion. The ceremonial groundbreaking, symbolising the start of construction, was performed by Brandes, Bergerhoff-Wodopia, Prof. Sunhild Kleingärtner, Scientific Director of the DBM, and Dietmar Dieckmann, City Councillor of the City of Bochum (Figure 1).

The new research and storage building will provide the DBM with improved working conditions and the urgently needed infrastructure for storing the collections of its own Montanhistorisches Dokumentations­zentrum (montan.dok). The montan.dok archive holdings and objects are currently still located in external storage areas and in office space at an interim location. The new building provides a permanent location for the research and digitisation of the collections of the montan.dok and will also serve as a research facility for external scientists from Germany and abroad in the future. Completion of the building is planned for 2026.

The new building, located close to the city centre on the former site of the Bochumer Verein cast steel factory, is part of the city’s mining history. At the same time, the modern building is symbolic of the structural change from a former industrial region to a progressive scientific one. (DBM/Si.)