003ExhibitionDuisburg, DE / 2025

Ore Pavilion

A hall for the Ruhr mineral collection, built inside the ore hopper it stands in.

Invited competition 2023. Open since April 2025.

Faceted metal-clad volume projecting over a glazed hall, seen from below

01DescriptionExhibition

The hopper was scheduled for demolition at a cost of 1.9 million euros. Keeping it and hanging a building inside it cost less than taking it down, which is the entire argument of the project and was the first line of the competition report.

A steel deck spans the hopper mouth at plus 11 metres. Everything above it is new and light. Everything below it is 1954 and stays exactly as it was found, including the wear on the chute plates, which is the most instructive surface in the collection.

Visitors enter at the top and descend. The exhibits get older as the structure around them gets rougher.

Title block

Programme	Exhibition hall, 1 lecture room
Client	Stiftung Industriekultur Ruhr
Existing	Ore hopper, 1954, listed 2009
Floor area	1,640 m2
Structure	Steel deck on existing hopper frame
Demolition avoided	1.9 m EUR
Procurement	Invited competition, 2023
Status	Open since April 2025
Practice	Aggregat, Basel

02Photographs03 plates

Two curved facades meeting overhead, seen looking up into blue sky — 003.01The gap left between new deck and old frame

Glass-clad building cantilevered over a lit entrance at dusk, with a car light trail across the foreground — 003.02Entrance at plus 11 metres

Dark towers converging overhead under an overcast sky — 003.03Descent through the hopper