Miners in the mining museum

At Kumpels guests always eat in good company.

For the German Mining Museum, SODA GROUP has designed a catering facility that can accommodate both museum guests and all other visitors on a large area – and can even handle large events.

Bochum – The Ruhr region looks back with pride on its mining past and its technical achievements. But the real fascination lies with the people who toiled underground: the miners and their very special team spirit. For the German Mining Museum in Bochum, which keeps this past alive, SODA GROUP designed the new gastronomy “Miners”.

As the restaurant is not purely a museum restaurant, but is open to all guests and can also be booked for events, the planning was intended to create optimal conditions for these flexible usage options. Thus, several kitchens were built at once: a smaller one on the ground floor, which can serve regular daily operations, and a large preparation kitchen with additional scullery and storage rooms in the basement. For larger events, over 100 guests can be catered for.

But even in the smaller circle it is true: whoever dines at the miner’s is surrounded by miners: The large-format wall drawing of a miner is by a regional artist, and the museum has contributed its own photographs of miners.

The rest of the furnishings are kept simple, after all, they should not compete with the exhibition in the museum: Materials such as copper, wood and steel determine the ambience, and colour is used sparingly. Only a shade of green may take up a little more space on furniture frames as well as wall tiles in the kitchen. Attentive visitors might find it familiar: as a quotation of the colour of the imposing winding tower in front of the museum buildingCity – Here is a text a citizens’ palace in Recklinghausen’s Heilige-Geist-Straße. This also solves the mystery of the name of the restaurant, which has been spoiling its guests with culinary delights in the vaulted cellar of the aforementioned building since 2016. The makers of 17achtzig speak of Sturm und Drang in the here and now, of no-frills home cooking that meets filigree culinary art. The rooms are also designed with this in mind. Pure and honest like the dominating materials natural stone, wood and leather, yet simple and restrained, discreet and giving precedence to the effect of the room. The well-placed light grasps the special nature of the vault and its potential as a backdrop for culinary enjoyment. The room aesthetically anticipates what should also be a pleasure in the glass and on the plate. The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung rightly suggests that this location would quickly become the Place To Be in the country’s metropolises as well.

CUSTOMER // DMT – Society for Teaching and Education mbH
REALISATION // 2017-2020
TASK // Interior design, gastronomy and kitchen planning