Industrial heritage
Duisburg produces more steel than any other city in Europe. Disused production facilities have been imaginatively transformed and are now among the world’s most unique monuments to industrial heritage. Former factory sites now offer sport, culture and leisure activities in an exciting setting.
The huge buildings and production facilities built here over one hundred years ago were an international sensation at the time. Nowadays the creative and sometimes incredible ways in which the disused sites have been converted for new uses are no less sensational. The Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord (Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord), a former ironworks, is now one of the world’s finest leisure parks. The Inner Harbour, whose warehouses once served as unloading points for ships, is now a modern promenade and office district with inviting restaurants and cafés. The importance of shipping and the world’s biggest inland port is documented in the Museum der Deutschen Binnenschifffahrt, housed in an old art nouveau swimming pool. On a former slag heap belonging to a zinc smelting works now stands the internationally acclaimed sculpture Tiger & Turtle, the ‘walkable roller coaster’. Yet industry is still very much alive in the city and continues to exert its influence. One particularly impressive sight is the Alsumer Berg on the site of a former rubble heap.