Wohlfahrtsgebäude alte Kolonie Eving

The “Alte Kolonie“ housing estate’s centre is the “Wohlfahrtsgebäude”, built in 1903.
In the “Wohlfahrtsgebäude” in Nollendorfplatz, we find a number of corporate social facilities like a kindergarten, a home economics and cooking school, a library and a laundry, for a time also a bachelors’ home, a civil servants’ casino and retailers. Until the 1960s, the public baths only charged a negligible entrance fee.
Like many other industrial housing estates, in the 1970s "Alte Kolonie" was about to be demolished. A grassroots initiative, however, was able to save the bulk of it.
The houses’ modernisation and installation of bathrooms superseded the public baths, which now accommodated a school for children with special needs before in 1989 the Deutsches Institut für publizistische Bildungsarbeit (media education institute) and its radio education centre moved in.
Within the framework of the IBA Emscher Park, the building in 1992 as the first project was renovated according to the guidelines applicable to historical monuments. The above-mentioned education centres aside, the City of Dortmund does also use it for seminars so that it continues to be a communicative meeting point in Dortmund.

Author: Route-der-Industriekultur / Editorial baukunst-nrw
Last changed on 22.06.2009

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Architecture » Public Buildings » community center