Industrial Heritage

With the dynamiting of the two blast furnaces of the Usine de Senelle, the last witnesses of the steel basin in Longwy, France, disappeared in the summer of 1991. Or almost everything.

Only a dozen pylons remain of the cable car between the iron mine in Öttingen, France and the blast furnaces of Terres Rouges in Differdange, Luxembourg.

The remains of a Pegelturm, or water-level tower, lie at the foot of the cliffs of Cape Arkona on the German island of Rügen.

A reinforced concrete headframe is all that remains of the Dutemple coal mine, which has operated for almost two centuries.

On the left bank of the Scheldt in Fresnes-sur-Escaut in Northern France, this centuries-old fire engine building bears witness to the ceaseless struggle of miners and engineers against the groundwater in the underground galleries.

The metal headframe and extraction machine of the Vieux 2 coal mine in Marles-les-Mines is the only remaining headframe preserved in the Béthune-Bruay region.

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.

When the northern French coal mines were nationalized after the Second World War under the Houillères du bassin du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais, rationality and efficiency were the order of the day, including in the mining towns.

The 43-metre-high headframe of the Saint-Amé mine reminds us of the turbulent coal history of the northern French municipality of Liévin, near Lens.