Duisburg Swaps Industry For Art and Culture
Duisburg and Oberhausen Become Centres for the Arts for Ruhr 2010
Oct 28, 2009
Duisburg was once Europe’s biggest inland port. Now part of its waterfront has become an attractive marina for leisure craft with an amphitheatre and lively bars and restaurants.
Innerhafen at Duisburg
Weisse Flotte (White Fleet) tourist boats offer tours around the Innerhafen (Inner Harbour).
The Innerhafen area is just a short stroll from the city centre where the broad Kongisstrasse is lined with shops. Overlooking it is the white Opera House, home of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
Europe’s First Atlas Created by Gerhard Mercator
Duisburg’s historical museum, the Kultur und Stadhistorisches Museum, overlooks the Innherhafen. It features the work of the pioneering 16th-century scientist Gerhard Mercator whose work on land maps and nautical charts led to the creation of Europe’s first atlas.
Many of Mercator’s original maps, globes and manuscripts are on display in the museum. His map of the world with its grid of parallels and meridians known as the Mercator Projection remains the basis for navigation today, found in every GPPS receiver!
Duisburg’s Landschaftspark
On the edge of Duisburg, the Landschaftspark is a former open-air foundry, now surrounded by parkland with footpaths and cycling trails. Visitors can walk around its old machinery, climb to the top (70 metres up) for distant views and see it spectacularly illuminated at night.
Its former ore storage bunkers are now used as climbing walls, while the plant’s gasometer has been filled with water to create a diving tank complete with artificial reef and a sunken ship at the bottom. Another area has been converted for skate boarding with a half-pipe and BMX-parcours.
Europe’s Tallest Gasometer at Oberhausen
The 117-metre high gasometer at Oberhausen in the Ruhr is the tallest in Europe’s. Towering over the industrial landscape, it is a landmark for miles around. Decommissioned in 1988 it has been imaginatively transformed into an exhibition centre.
Inside the transformation is amazing. Wide and dimly lit, the round metal building has been imaginatively transformed into an exhibition centre, devoted to the Planets and the Universe. A vast moon hangs from the roof. Around the walls, displays of photographs, models, videos and objects such as historic astronomic instruments tell the story of past and present space exploration.
On Top of the Oberhausen Gasometer
An outdoor walkway on top of the Oberhausen Gasometer, to which visitors are now whisked up by lift, provides extensive and dramatic views.
Looking down from it, the railway lines, a canal, roads and buildings and a football field below look like toys stretching into the distance.
CentrO Shopping Centre near Oberhausen Gasometer
Other redundant industrial buildings near the Gasometer have been turned into a huge shopping centre, the CentrO. The cafes and restaurants alongside it have attractive outdoor terraces beside a canal. One of the restaurants, the Efendy, has an Arabian Nights theme. Another, Brauhaus Zeche Jacobi, is on the theme of mining, complete with old equipment, and has its own micro-brewery.
Opposite the centre, the Arena is a venue for concerts with an exciting programme for Ruhr 2010. An attraction for children is the nearby Sea Life Centre.
So not surprisingly, together with the Gasometer, CentrO has become one of the popular places in the Ruhr to visit for a day out.
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