As the former largest industrial region in Europe, the Ruhr area has been subject to profound economic and social change since the coal crisis in the late 1950s and the steel crisis in the late 1970s. The structural change not only made the social and economic future of the Ruhr area uncertain, but also called the region into question as such, since it was not defined by natural, political or administrative borders, but by the economic influence of coal and steel. The study examines the extent to which historical-cultural measures, which began with the respectful preservation of mining and industrial production sites as evidence of industrial culture and culminated in the Capital of Culture year 2010, are to be understood as a reaction to the region's uncertain future. She thus presents a concept for the analysis of historical culture as a social field, which, in addition to the historical-cultural development of the Ruhr area in particular, also addresses questions about the historicization of the historical boom since the 1970s in general.