The Diercke Weltatlas calls Bochum a model of structural change. The development can be seen here particularly well: more than 40 000 employees in the total of 17 collieries – until the 70s, the last steel mill went into great silence, and with them thousands of people into unemployment. Bochum is one of the top 5 tourism cities in the Ruhr Metropolis, but the problems and worries of the city are everywhere visible: vacancy, fallow land, shop for rent here, since decades after renovation crunching buildings there. “I wish finally something beautiful in the Ruhr area!” Conciliatory farewell words by André Heller, after we had a few seconds in ANIMA Park.

An ANIMA Park for Bochum, can the troubled robe of the region be ventilated in this way?

Since the drastic closure of the Opel plant, a record low of unemployment in Bochum is emerging. Finally, less than 10% unemployed people. In comparison to Germany as a whole, however, it is still high: the annual average in Germany in 2018 is 5.3%.

Something nice for Bochum. I imagine tons of earth being balanced and exchanged around the Century Hall. How rare earths spring up from the ground and nourishing humus of a varied flora helps towards the sun. As a maze between the rusting pipes and towering silos invites you to scatter and fool around, thousands of animals feel well and their calls next to the water features not let the echoing pipes penetrate from the main road further away.

Dreamy idyll, colorful monument of the city, from anywhere they would flow into the city to marvel at Bochum’s new heart.