Deep in the West, Where the sun turns to dust, Things are better, Much better than people think.” A declaration of love could hardly sound more beautiful. Pop star Herbert Grönemeyer made a hit out of his affection for the Ruhr District. And extolled the charm and the challenge of the region in a few brief words.

The Ruhr District has two faces. And they are as alike as a black-and-white film and a 3D multimedia projection. There is the ineradicable image of smoking chimneys and clanking pithead towers. And then there is the lesser well-known picture of innovative companies, new universities, experimental theatre companies and beer gardens on the river Ruhr. They are separated by 50 years and the radical transformation of Europe’s largest industrial district into a dynamic economic region. Structural change is the sober term for this painful process.

“We have wiped the coal dust off our face,” explains a report by the City of Essen. The former industrial centre wants to promote the new image of the Ruhr District. In 2010, together with 52 other towns and municipalities between Duisburg in the west and Dortmund in the east, Essen will be able to demonstrate what the Ruhr District is really like. An EU panel of experts selected it to be European Capital of Culture in that year. The panel was swayed by the idea of the region’s development into a new form of cultural metropolis. This urban landscape with barely discernible boundaries is presenting itself under the heading “Change through Culture – Culture through Change”. Ten key projects are currently being prepared in the thematic fields of City of Possibilities, City of the Arts and City of Cultures. They will include an exhibition and performance project along the B1/A40, the region’s main highway, and the Folkwang Atoll, more than 20 “art islands” in the Ruhr that visitors will only be able to reach by boat. The Second City project must be unique. The kilometres-long labyrinth of underground tunnels and seams is to be partially opened up for art. “Deep in the West...”

Martin Orth