Hainaut
At the end of 2014, the demolition hammer threatened the modernist concrete mine shaft of Saint-Albert in the village of Péronnes-lez-Binche.
Coal mines
In the French coal basin of Nord-pas-de-Calais, Germany's Ruhr and Saarland, England, Wales, and Belgium, coal was brought to the surface in hundreds of coal mines for many years. Today, coal mines have become heritage sites or have been demolished.
- 89 destinations
Hauts-de-France
The blue-painted headframe is all that remains of the French Sabatier coal mine, closed in 1980.
Hauts-de-France
Oignies is the last place in the French mining basin of the Pas-de-Calais region where coal was exploited. The mine did not close until December 1990.
Ruhr Area
In 1890, coal mines were popping up like mushrooms in the German Ruhr area. The Zeche Zollern was one of the seventy newcomers you can still visit today.
Hauts-de-France
On the border of the French town of Lens stands this 66-meter-high colossus made of reinforced concrete: the extraction tower of Fosse n° 11-19, a French coal mine that closed 30 years ago.
Wales
Thanks to Blaenavon Ironworks and the Big Pit coal mine, a Welsh, once modest village became one of the key players in the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.
Wales
Former miner Glyn Roberts takes us on a tour of Tower Colliery, the coal mine where he worked since the 1960s. He saw one mine after another close in South Wales, and in 1994, the death bells also sounded over Tower Colliery.
Ruhr Area
In the 19th century, the tentacles of the Walloon coal industry in Belgium reached deep into the German Ruhr area.
Ruhr Area
Three striking headframes from three different eras stand in the German Ewald coal mine, which closed its doors in 2000.
Ruhr Area
The iron headframe above the Pluto-Wilhelm mine in the German Ruhr area immediately evokes the Zollverein headframe in Essen, which has been declared a World Heritage Site. This counterpart is threatened with demolition.
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On the occasion of International Art Nouveau Day, celebrated each year on June 10, a look at how this ornate architectural movement found its way into the most unlikely of places like coal mines, power stations, and railway yards and the long, sometimes heartbreaking battles to save what remains.
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