Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

For most of the twentieth century the ironworks at Meiderich, in the north of Duisburg, produced pig iron for the Thyssen empire; the furnaces ran from 1901 until 1985 and then fell silent, leaving behind a tangle of blast furnaces, ore bunkers, gas tanks and a badly polluted site. Instead of clearing it, the landscape architect Peter Latz, of the practice Latz + Partner, proposed in 1991 to keep almost everything and let a park grow into the ruins. Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord became one of the founding works of a whole way of thinking about post-industrial land, and it remains among the most influential parks of its generation.

The idea was to change as little as possible and read everything anew. Contaminated soils were left in place and cleaned by plants rather than dug out; the concrete walls of the ore bunkers became gardens and climbing routes; a former open sewer was turned into a clean stream fed by rainwater. Old gas tanks were flooded and now serve scuba divers, and 49 heavy steel plates that once lined the casting pits were laid out as a square, the Piazza Metallica. Nature has done its part as well: wild vegetation has colonised the slag heaps and rail beds, and the park has become a local hotspot of biodiversity in the western Ruhr, monitored by its own biological station since 2005.

The centrepiece is Blast Furnace 5, which visitors can climb by steel stairs through the heart of the plant, past pipes and hoppers, to a platform 70 metres up with a view over Duisburg, the western Ruhr and the flat country of the Lower Rhine. The scale is best felt at close quarters, with rust-brown walls of riveted steel rising on every side. After dark the mood changes completely: a light installation by the designer Jonathan Park washes the furnaces and chimneys in shifting reds, blues and greens, turning a dead ironworks into something closer to a stage set.

The park is also a working cultural venue: the former power station and blower house hold concerts, festivals and theatre, including productions of the Ruhrtriennale. It is not a museum behind glass but a place where people walk dogs, cycle, dive and climb among the relics, and that everyday use is exactly what Latz intended.

Getting there

The park lies in Meiderich, about 2 km from the district centre, on the northern side of Duisburg. The nearest airport is Düsseldorf (DUS), about 21 km away. Tram 903 (direction Dinslaken) stops at Landschaftspark Nord, and there is free parking at the main entrance on Emscherstraße.