Brutal beauty

William Cook takes us on a tour of 2010’s unlikely European Capital of Culture

‘And the European Capital of Culture in 2010 will be …the Ruhr.’ When I first heard the announcement, it sounded like a particularly unfunny German joke. The Ruhr, after all, is Europe’s biggest rust belt — a vast swathe of mines and factories, many now derelict or redundant, which stretches across north-west Germany like a huge unsightly rash. It’s hard to imagine a less likely cultural capital, and normally I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it had it not been for a fond memory of one of the nicest afternoons I’ve ever spent.

A few years ago I was in this part of Germany on business and ended up in Essen, one of the biggest cities in the Ruhr. Essen is uninspiring, to say the least — a cross between Coventry and Croydon — but its Folkwang Museum is amazing, with an incredible collection of 19th- and 20th-century art.