Dieter Nellen – författare

Düsseldorf is growing—in both its economy and its urban space. Yet the metropolis on the Rhine is doing so not by reinventing itself but by gaining new qualities. As in other, similar European metropolises, this wave of development offers an opportunity to further raise the profile of architecture and urban development and to launch projects in public space, art, culture, and infrastructure, with contemporary forms of living and new mobility. Düsseldorf regularly scores highly on rankings of quality of life and profits from its location on the Rhine and the urban development of the river’s banks. This publication provides a compact overview of current key projects, formats, areas, addresses, competitions, and participation initiatives in the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. It gives voice to the City of Düsseldorf and its main actors.

For a long time, the Emscher was Germany’s dirtiest river. Now, however, it runs clear again. This volume documents the social and ecological restoration of the Emscher, which flows through the northern Ruhr area for 81 km. Used as a mining wastewater system during the industrial period, it has now been transformed into a new regional river landscape for the twenty-first century. Numerous opportunities for upgrading the overall region find their source in the renaturing of the river and its many backwaters: the restoration has created opportunities for renaturing and conversion, and provides a strong development axis for sustainable city and landscape planning. The overall strategy, key projects, accompanying materials, and regional political discussion around this comprehensive transformation are presented here with texts, plans, and images for the first time.

In the twenty-first century, the Ruhr area—with 5.1 million inhabitants, the largest conurbation in Germany—finds itself poised between historical preservation and modernization: the region still stands for its mining past and its postindustrial transformation, and yet it also offers an example of sustainable urban and regional development. The more the structural change of the region advances, the more the Ruhr area reflects a pattern common to many cities internationally: the in-between urban spaces become more connected to the densely populated centers that are traditionally found in European cities. This book is being published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Siedlungsverband Ruhrkohlenbezirk, now the Regionalverband Ruhr. This organization was founded in 1920, at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, as a planning and environmental body and is today still the largest metro administrative body in Europe. The volume offers a programmatic agenda for the future. It documents the history, strategy, and governance of the Regionalverband Ruhr as a network organization for regional management that has jointly been responsible for internationally renowned lead projects such as the IBA Emscher Park, RUHR.2010—European Capital of Culture, Ruhrtriennale, Green Infrastructure, and the IGA Metropole Ruhr 2027. Using texts, images, and plans, it vividly depicts the inner master plan for the Ruhr metropolis, producing a master narrative— not least of all for the areas of soft regionalization, culture, tourism, industrial culture, and economic and scientific marketing in the “city of cities.”