Tetrahedron Bottrop

The Bergehalde Beckstraße was built on a 33-hectare site that was formerly used for agriculture by the Prosper II mine. However, it is not the tailings pile that is nationally known - and that gives it its name to the public - but the work of art that has adorned it since the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park: the tetrahedron, a steel construction that rests on four concrete pillars, each nine meters high, and so apparently seems to be floating.

The impressive heap of the former Prosper colliery on Beckstrasse in Bottrop is one of the most important landmarks in the region. This is mainly due to the impressive staging of coal and steel that has dominated the summit of the artificial table mountain since 1995: the "Emscherblick heap event", better known as the Tetrahedron, a steel, 60 meter high pyramid embedded in a huge field of waste rock, the material from which the heap was created between 1963 and 1980. Visible from afar, the tetrahedron has long been a landmark not only of the city but of the entire region. A walk-in work of art, created by Wolfgang Christ for the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park, with three suspended viewing platforms.

When the weather is clear, visitors are rewarded with a view as far as Duisburg. In the immediate vicinity are the Alpincenter Bottrop on the Prosperstraße heap, the pits of the Prosper II colliery, a coking plant, the Arenberg continuation of the IBA projects, Welheim garden settlement, the Bottrop sewage treatment plant and of course the Prosper twin heap. The view over the urban landscape of the Ruhr area is also impressive. The way up to the heap is either via the 350 steps of a staircase or on serpentine footpaths.