"Am Kanal" settlement

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Row of houses
Gatehouse to Kösterstrasse
Farm road in the house gardens

The settlement "Am Kanal" is a miners' settlement in the Lüner district of Osterfeld on the Datteln-Hamm Canal near the Prussian port .

The central settlement, which was built between 1921 and 1922 according to plans by the architect Rudolf Winzer , was particularly important in several respects for the construction of settlements in the Ruhr area .

It was one of the first projects in which the factory settlement was no longer financed exclusively by the employer. The non-profit Bergmannssiedlung Lünen GmbH founded in 1920 as a subsidiary of the Treuhandstelle für Bergmannswohnstätten in the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal District GmbH built apartments with state subsidies. As a result, the link between employment and rental contracts could be abolished and the workers' dependence on the mining companies reduced. It was also unusual that some of the apartments were sold to miners and not rented out.

The settlement was originally planned as a central settlement on both sides of the canal. Miners from the surrounding mines Victoria , Prussia and Gneisenau should live in a common small town and find all public facilities such as childcare, school, food and other retail stores, community center, police plus fire station, post office and pharmacy. But sports and recreational facilities were also planned. For the conditions at the time it was astonishing that two tennis courts were to be built in addition to a soccer field, boathouse, cycle racing track and bathing establishment. The location on the connecting road between Lünen-Süd and Lüner city center in the north was relatively isolated, and the location was planned as a closed complex.

Small front gardens and extensive kitchen gardens behind the houses, uniform design of the house facades and the floor plans with the simultaneous loving expression of building details, the layout of squares and farm roads show the orientation of the planning towards a garden city . The expansion with originally over 700 residential units also made the city within the city one of the largest settlement projects of the time. The gatehouse at the main entrance on Kösterstrasse is a noticeable feature. It shows a relief with five miners in typical underground activities.

Only the development on the north side of the canal was realized, the rest could not be carried out economically due to inflation and occupation of the Ruhr .

During the Second World War, the settlement was partially damaged by bombs and the nearby bridge being blown up and then rebuilt.

In 1975, the then owner, the trust company, intended to build new buildings in the rear gardens, which met resistance from the residents. With the ad hoc established settlement group “Bergmannssiedlung am Kanal” and the support of local politicians, it was possible to prevent the new building plans. However, the trust company privatized the houses, most of which were sold to the previous tenants. The settler community became a registered association in 1978, expanded a house into a community house in 1980 and is still active today with canal festivals, among other things. The settlement is also popularly called Negerdorf , as it was planned in the shape of a kraal . Another explanation for this name comes from the appearance of the inhabitants employed in the mining industry, who occasionally returned home from work with blackened faces. Despite the availability of laundromats at the colliery, some preferred bathing at home (for example in the “Negerdorf” in neighboring Kamen).

The gatehouse of the settlement is a listed building .

Web links

Commons : Settlement “Am Kanal”  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dennis Betzholz: The mail is still going on in the negro village. In: The West. July 8, 2011, accessed February 13, 2020 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 35 ′ 59.4 "  N , 7 ° 31 ′ 47.6"  E