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In the fifth part of the "Unser Land" series, WDR and BROADVIEW TV take a look at NRW in the 1990s.
The state is changing: Bonn loses its status as capital city and the Ruhr area becomes a local recreation area.
An El Dorado for media, services, energy and the creative industries emerges.
NRW is fully in tune with the times - not nostalgic, but progressive.
Impressive buildings are rising up into the sky as symbols of the new era.
Internationally renowned architects are designing unusual buildings and redefining entire cityscapes.
At the same time, existing buildings are being redesigned: Powerful witnesses of the past are becoming landmarks of the present.
Fewer and fewer people in NRW are getting dirty at work.
Media, services and culture are the new employers.
The profound transformation is changing needs, self-image and also the landscape.
NRW is shedding its skin, sprucing itself up and getting ready for the 21st century.
The Mediapark is being built in Cologne, where music broadcasters such as EinsLive and Viva are based and Europe's largest music trade fair Popkomm has its origins.
At the same time, large film studios are springing up on the outskirts of the city: TV faces such as Stefan Raab and Anke Engelke are the stars of tomorrow.
But hardly anyone set the tone of the 90s like Harald Schmidt, who reinvented himself as an American-style late-night talk show host.
His irony and sarcasm fit in with the times when everything seemed to be new and many things were being questioned.
The Gasometer Oberhausen also stands for change.
A museum is being built in the old industrial building and a landscaped park is growing around it, in which Germany's largest shopping center to date is being opened.
Nowhere is it clearer to see how an industrial landscape is being transformed into a cultural landscape.
But upheaval also means that the old has not yet been completely overcome: NRW remains an energy state, entire villages in the Rhenish lignite mining area have to be relocated when the controversial Garzweiler II project is approved.
SPD Minister President Wolfgang Clement is caught between two fronts.
His policies are controversial: on the one hand, he is driving cultural change and is seen as the modernizer and driving force of NRW, while on the other hand he is a militant lobbyist for the traditional energy industry, the former heart of the state.
He faces the challenge of building a bridge from the old to the new.
Between lignite dramas and media revolutions, great stories and small anecdotes unfold - an exciting journey through time, which is only a small part of the diverse history of North Rhine-Westphalia that the "Unser Land" series brings to life.
First broadcast: Friday, September 16, 2016, 8:15 p.m. on WDR
