Underground Station "Bergwerk Consolidation"
Movig down 1,200 metres in less than 60 seconds
When someone steps onto the escalators at the underground station "Bergwerk Consolidation", they embark on a short journey. Miners in wooden struts hang above them, keeping a close eye on who is travelling down. When the travellers reach the platform, they are greeted by miners. Their faces are completely black with coal. Until a few years ago, it looked similar just a few hundred metres from here, when the miners at Colliery Consolidation 3/4/9 or Colliery Consolidation 1/6 were still travelling to depths of up to 1,200 metres. The subway station "Consolidation Mine" keeps the memories of this time alive. With its six large-format scenes, it makes the world of workers in a mine tangible. The design of the walls also echoes the structures of coal seams. Mine cars at the end of the platform round off the small "space journey into the depths of the earth".
For 25 years, Alfred Schmidt (1930-1997) made it his mission to document the lives of miners. He produced over 400 drawings underground - despite all the adverse conditions. His description of mining as "space travel into the depths of the earth" illustrates his understanding of working underground: Every day, the miners travelled into a strange, dangerous world that lay directly beneath our feet. And just as in space travel, working in these extreme conditions was only possible through the use of state-of-the-art technology. Schmidt completed the design of the underground station in 1994. Some headframes, such as that of Consolidation 1/6, have since disappeared from the cityscape. Others, such as that of Consolidation 3/4/9, are still a reminder of the mining past. But the "Consolidation Mine" stop gives an impression of what it was like in the depths.
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