The utilisation concept gives the inherited world cultural heritage substance due respect and brings the utilisation of the Museum into harmonious interaction with the existing substance. At the Rammelsberg the usage of the inherited building substance aims at securing its existence and cautiously restoring it without eliminating the evidence of its use. Beautification and well-meant improvements in design and form are therewith as out of the question as historicism-style additions. The underlying principle is authenticity.

At the authentic location the visitor establishes mental connections between that work which at one time took place here and that which is today supportively presented here. Intersections where old and new converge are not covered up but rather documented as evidence of changes in usage.

In contrast to mining museums, the buildings are not neutral storage locations and not simply a wrapper for exponents placed there without interrelationship. The rooms stand for themselves, are exponents of themselves, exactly as the Old Town with its buildings and the cultural landscape in which the former ore mine works is imbedded are exponents of themselves. They are all part and parcel of the same history, to which each offers its own entry: human labour as prerequisite to and the carrier of culture. Exhibited objects and original venue together make the assimilation of this history possible.

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