9. Dirk Paschke and Daniel Milohnic

9. Dirk Paschke and Daniel Milohnic, Works Swimming Pool (2001)

The place where once coal was refined into coke has been turned into a summer-time meeting place in the north of Essen. Composed of two overseas containers welded together, the works swimming pool invites you to relax and swim amidst the impressive facilities of the former coking plant. The Frankfurt artists Dirk Paschke and Daniel Milohnic built the “Werksschwimmbad” in 2001 as part of the arts project “Contemporary Art and Criticism“. Since then, the pool has been emblematic of structural change in the Ruhr region. With their “social sculpture“, the two artists gave a completely new function to a place that until the 1990s was characterised exclusively by hard work in great noise and heat: today, residents and visitors spend their free time there, enjoying a welcome, cooling dip on hot summer days.