Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

Duisburg

How can industrial wasteland be transformed into attractive, green leisure areas? The Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a novel showcase park, shaped by the industrial nature of the region, evolved within the scope of the IBA Emscher Park.
The starting point was the Thyssen blast furnace at Duisburg-Meiderich, closed down in 1985, with an area of 200 hectares and surrounded by districts of the city of Duisburg. In its industrial heyday, more than 10,000 workers were involved in the iron manufacturing processes on the site. When the works closed down in 1985, after 82 years, the owner and the city of Duisburg saw little opportunity for new commercial enterprises at this location. The site was closed and abandoned, with large sections of it contaminated.

At the suggestion of the city of Duisburg and supported by a purchase via the property fund of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the site was able to play a part in the IBA Emscher Park in 1989. This was the start of what remains today a unique development, paving the way for many other projects aimed at the transformation of old industrial sites. Teams of landscape architects were invited to the site to develop ideas for the future use and appearance of the site.

At the heart of the park is the former blast furnace plant. Many of the existing buildings, the technical plant, ladder tracks and infrastructure have been retained as part of the project. Using garden and landscape design resources, they were expanded and remodelled to fit with the plans drawn up by landscape architect Peter Latz (Kranzberg).

A mixture of designed and wild areas were created, with space also being left for the vegetation to spread. One special feature is the installation of self-contained gardens, sports facilities and playgrounds in the old industrial structures. Today, many different associations have adopted areas of the park: The metre-thick concrete walls of the former ore bins are intensively used as a climbing garden, the gasometer – filled with 20,000 m³ of water – is a diver’s paradise. The blast furnace run-off level is regularly used as an open-air theatre, opera and film stage and the former gas turbine ad machine halls are used as theatre and event venues.

Since 1996, at night a light installation by the British engineer Jonathan Park immerses the blast furnace backdrop with multi-coloured illuminations. At the same time, a blast furnace was made available as a 70-m tall, accessible viewing platform. An important subproject of the park is the modification of the Alten Emscher river, which was made accessible via steps and footbridges. The modification of the watercourse is one of the first reference projects for the environmental reconstruction of the waterways of the Emscher system.

The conclusion of the IBA Emscher Park saw the further development of usage concepts and applications for the park. Different building shells and areas found new uses. The former blower halls and casting houses were further qualified technically and structurally as event venues by the Ruhr Triennial, a multi-year cultural programme of the state. A youth hostel and training centre have been established in the smelting work’s former administration building. Since 2007, the station on the site has been used for tourist rail traffic – the Emscher Park Railway. The park has developed into a cultural and leisure park which is open to the public all year round at no charge. It has around 700,000 visitors every year.