What to See in Duisburg - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Duisburg, Germany. The German Inland Waterways Museum is located in Ruhrort, Duisburg at the nucleus of Duisburg-Ruhrorter ports which today make up the largest European inland harbour complex.

The museum was founded in 1974 with purchase of the museum ship Oscar Huber. In 1998 the museum was moved from the old town hall into the city's former indoor swimming facility, an Art Nouveau landmark which had been built in 1910, closed in 1986, and declared a protected historic site in 1988. The move allowed the museum the space to exhibit complete ships, as well as spurring redevelopment in the harbor area. The building conversion was designed by Architektur Fabrik Aachen (afa) and an American artist, Ron Bernstein, and made very little change to the building exterior while expanding the inner spaces to accommodate the exhibits. For example, a full-size sailing ship now occupies the former men's pool, while the second-story women's pool now houses a reconstructed barge.^[4]

Sculpture by Lutz Fritsch. Rheinorange is a sculpture erected in 1992 in Duisburg-Neuenkamp, Germany. It is located at the point where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine at 'Rheinkilometer 780', i.e. 780 km from the source of the Rhine. It was constructed from steel by the sculptor Lutz Fritsch from Köln.

It is 25 m tall, 7 m wide and 1 m thick, and weighs 83 tonnes. The cost was over 400.000 DM, which was donated by the Niederrhein IHK (chamber of commerce) after a fund-raising initiative by the young entrepreneurs members. The name Rheinorange is actually a play on words. It sounds like Reinorange (pure orange) which is RAL 2004 in the RAL color standard.

The sculpture is intended to form a landmark. The mouth of the river, the largest inland harbour in Europe, the most important steel district in Europe, a base for technology with a future, the Lehmbruck-Museum as an important gallery for modern sculpture in Europe, are all intended to be connected with each other in representing aspects of the economic and cultural life of Duisburg.

The Rhine Orange is a feature on the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail.^[6]

Venue for modern international sculpture. The Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Center for International Sculpture is a museum in Duisburg, Germany.

Sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, after whom the museum is named, make up a large part of its collection. However, the museum has a substantial number of works by other 20th-century sculptors, including Ernst Barlach, Käthe Kollwitz, Ludwig Kasper, Hermann Blumenthal, Alexander Archipenko, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Henri Laurens, Jacques Lipchitz, Alexander Rodtschenko, Laszlo Péri, Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst. This is complemented by a considerable number of paintings by 19th- and 20th-century German artists. The museum circulates its substantial collection by re-installing works on an annual basis.^[11]

Botanical garden in Duisburg, Germany. The Botanischer Garten Duisburg-Hamborn, also known as the Botanischer Garten Duisburg or the Botanischer Garten Hamborn, is a municipal botanical garden and aquarium located at Fürst-Pückler-Straße 18, Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is open daily, and should not be confused with the Botanischer Garten Kaiserberg, another botanical garden in Duisburg.

The garden hosts about 1,000 species outdoors and in greenhouses. Major features of the garden include a landscape park, rhododendrons, fuchsia and primula collections, aromatic and medicinal plants, and ferns. The garden has also a lily pond, tropical greenhouse, subtropical greenhouse, and greenhouse containing about 800 cacti and succulents, as well as an aquarium.

According to local newspaper WAZ in March 2010 it had been on a list of community facilities together with public baths, that would be closed subsequently, since funding was no longer lawful as of Art. 81 in German Haushaltsrecht. The mayoral council of Duisburg decided against these plans – though without having found a proper way of funding that would and could find approval by superior Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf, which controls the city's funds.^[12]

Old harbor with restaurants and park areas. The Innenhafen in Duisburg, Germany, is connected to the Rhine River, encompasses an area of 89ha. For over a hundred years during the high point of the Industrial Revolution, it was the central harbour and trading point of the town. Since the mid 1960s, the importance of the harbour declined and it lay in a disused condition for 20 years, before plans for renovation were drawn up. This former industrial area has been fundamentally transformed, a process which started as a part of the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park which ran from 1989 until 1999.

The basis for this model of development in the Ruhr district was delivered in 1994 by the British architect Norman Foster. Since then, the Inner Harbor has transformed itself into a district combining employment, housing, culture and water-based leisure activities. Today, the Inner Harbour is both industrial heritage and a main stop on the Route der Industriekultur.^[15]

Historical landmark in Duisburg, Germany. The Allgemeine Grainstore is a former granary now used for office space and parking facilities. It is located at 17 Philosophenweg, Duisburg Inner Harbour. The warehouse was built for the "Allgemeine Speditionsgesellschaft". When it was built in 1936 it transformed the technology of concrete silo construction technology.

It stands prominently on its own near the Holzhafen. The building was rebuilt in 1999 to designs of the architects Bahl and Partners. The building was dismantled down to its foundations. The façade was reconstructed out of clinker, glass and metal to preserve its historic appearance. Nevertheless it has a highly efficient building shell. It houses office space which can accommodate 200 workers.^[18]