In the last few decades, the Ruhr Area – once a major industrial
region in Germany – has undergone a structural transformation that
changed the landscapes of its towns and cities. Nowadays, the
remnants of heavy industry are integral parts of urban semiotics
articulating the cities’ industrial “soul” and heritage. In Essen,
the centre of the Ruhr Area, modified collieries, steel and iron
plants are strategically enduring but hardly ever competing/clashing
with emergent scenery and signage. Following the work of Raymond
Williams (1980), our paper considers residual industrial structures
which open up ways of thinking about reinvented spaces that anchor
cultural memory, regional identity and nostalgia. Our analytical focus 
is the Winding Tower of Shaft 12 preserved at Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial 
Complex in Essen (UNESCO World Heritage site) – a landmark called the 
“Eiffel Tower of the Ruhr Area” (Berkenbosch et al. 2022). 
In this semiotic landscape study, we trace the industrial tower 
resemiotized (Iedema, 2001) into visuals and material artefacts 
(e.g. art, logos, objects, clothing) embedding themselves ubiquitously 
into landscapes of consumption and heritage.
Our aim is to show how the tower emerges as post-industrial capital
which carries on the reinvention ideas and ideals that fabricate the
area’s symbolic economy (Zukin, 1995), allowing people to continue
consuming its authenticity. Ultimately, we demonstrate how
resemiotized industrial structures have a key visual-material role in
the construction and (tourist) consumption of the city image.

References:

Berkenbosch, K., Groote, P. and Stoffelen, A. (2022) Industrial heritage in tourism marketing: legitimizing post-industrial development strategies of the Ruhr Region, Germany. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 17(3), 327-341.

Iedema, R. (2001) Resemiotization. Semiotica, 137, 23–39.

Williams, R. (1980) Problems in Materialism and Culture. London: Verso.

Zukin, S. (1995) The Cultures of Cities. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.