Settlement Zugtenstraße Lünen

Simple practicality instead of representative playfulness in the design: from 1898 onwards, simple houses with deep front gardens offered the workers at the Prussia colliery a rather low standard of living. However, an exemplary redevelopment of the colony by the state development company of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1989 saved a valuable example of the early company housing construction in the area from possible decay.

and 1.000 miners were employed by Harpener Bergbau AG around 1897 in their Prussian mines. Workers and families for whom housing was urgently needed. 52 brick houses arranged in a row on Ziethenstraße in Lünen were intended to remedy this: Up to four families could live in each house; Each building also had its own stable on the back. The fact that the settlement has not exactly been one of the gems of company housing construction in the Ruhr area over the course of its history can be explained by the low standard of the apartments and the often poor condition of the living environment. Up until the 1950s, for example, the toilets were outside on Stallgasse - simple outhouses, one for two families.

The settlement had its own infrastructure with schools, churches and a connection to the tramway early on (from 1905). The city imposed the financing on large parts of the Harpener mining company. For example, the company not only had to build a police station, but also pay the salary of the local officer.

The fundamental rethinking of the public with regard to the future of the workers' settlements in the Ruhr area and the vehement struggle of the residents of other settlements also had positive consequences for the Ziethenstraße settlement: From 1989 the colony was extensively renovated by the state development company (LEG) NRW and is now a listed building . Numerous houses have been privatized; original tenants received a lifetime right of occupancy. The city of Lünen regularly offers guided tours through the south of the city and the miners' settlement.