In 1847, the coal and steel industry in the German Ruhr area reached cruising speed as industrialist Franz Haniel erected a coal mine in Essen.
In 1993, the Kokerei Zollverein coking plant was at the end of its rope: the steel crisis of the 1990s caused the demand for coke to melt away.
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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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