Campus Bockmühle

In the 1970s, alongside new universities and comprehensive higher education institutions, numerous large-scale school complexes were built across the Ruhr region. Some consolidated different school types, while others combined education with additional urban infrastructure. Education was seen as a central driver of transformation in a region shaped by heavy industry, closely tied to the promise of social mobility for a younger generation. The newly introduced comprehensive schools in particular were conceived as “schools for all,” grounded in an expanded understanding of educational equity that deliberately set them apart from the stratified system of Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium. Architecturally, this ambition often materialized in functionally complex ensembles that introduced a marked shift in scale within their urban surroundings.