Every design for Bergkamen

Have you ever climbed the Adener Höhe and looked out over the eastern Ruhr? Bergkamen is a young town, formed in 1966 when five smaller communities merged, yet its story reaches back to the Roman legions who built a great camp on a hill at Oberaden. It lies just south of the River Lippe, between Dortmund and Hamm, with the Münsterland starting on the far bank.

For many families here, the town still means the pits. In February 1946 a dust explosion killed 418 miners, the worst mining accident in German history, and that memory runs deep. Bergkamen has changed since then: the wooded Großes Holz was once a slag heap, the Beversee is a place to walk and breathe, and the town comes together for the harbour festival in June and the Lichtermarkt in October.

The Adener Höhe, Halde Haus Aden I and Halde Monopol (Bergkamen) were built from what the miners brought up from below. Wearing those hills is a way of remembering the people who shaped this town, and of showing how green it has grown since.