Mining colonies: Neue Kolonie Niederberg, Neukirchen

Directly south of the Zeche Niederberg on land hemmed in by preexisting roads the new mining colony was developed between 1926 and 1930 on the fields of the Fürmannshof farm. From this moment on the Kolonie Niederberg would be known as Alte Kolonie (old colony) and the new colony as such: Neue Kolonie. The model of row houses in their own gardens was not applied for this new colony. It therefore differs greatly from the other mining colonies in Neukirchen.

The whole of the Neue Kolonie consists of rental blocks with apartments (Mietshäuser). Every apartment block is two floors high topped by a hipped roof with room for bedrooms in the loft space. The entrances are not on the side of the street but at the back, where the communal gardens are situated. Thus the whole is a radical translation of the garden city ideal along the lines of earlier German examples (the so-called Gartenhöfe). Within the communal garden rows of small sheds are located. These used to be stables for small livestock (chickens, goats or pigs) to be kept by the residents. To the side, also along a stream (the Ophülsgraben) there are allotments (A) for the resident to grow their own food.

Not just the type of building in this mining colony is urban rather than suburban, the same is true of the architecture and the layout. The buildings are distributed along a few straight streets. The building line is the same along the streets, except for the front of the colony on the Bendschenweg where two blocks are set back with two pillars to form a formal double gatehouse ensemble. In the axis of this ensemble the Holtmannstraße was built. Also around the main entrance to the colony from the Bendschenweg the Etzoldstraße widens into the Etzoldplatz (E) along which a formal  ensemble of staggered buildings reinforce the tapering shape of the public space (and entrance). The apartment blocks have been designed as stern blocks with some decoration in brick and decorative gables at the entrance facing the colliery on either side of the Etzoldplatz. These brick blocks, like the blocks built in the Siedlung Repelen in Moers-Rheinkamp are examples of the revival of the old brick architecture of the Rhineland. Directly south a Wäscherei (W) was built. In this building the communal laundry service was housed, it has now been converted into a Turkish social club.

 

The area within the red outline is the Alte Kolonie. A portion of the apartment blocks ((hatched) were rebuilt after WW2 as they had been completely destroyed. To the west of the colony some shops were built during the 1920s. There had been no provisions made for shops or other commercial space within the mining colony. Especially in the post-war decades family houses and more commercial properties were built on this side. To the south the colony was extended twice. The first extension is an ordered neigbourhood (Siedlung) -shown crosshatched- comprising of apartment blocks in communal gardens that was completed in the 1960s. The 1980s neighbourhood (not shown) comprises of apartment blocks, maisonettes and row houses and doesn't follow the typology of the Alte Kolonie..