Architecture in North Rhine-Westphalia
The architecture in North Rhine-Westphalia encompasses buildings from almost all epochs of Central European architectural history . The Roman civilization on the Rhine left behind early evidence of an architectura . The oldest dated Roman stone building in North Rhine-Westphalia - at the same time also the oldest stone building north of the Alps - is the so-called Ubiermonument in Cologne , which could have served as a port tower to fortify or guard the Oppidum Ubiorum . The felling of the oak trunks of its pile foundation dates to the year 4 AD. The oldest preserved structures in North Rhine-Westphalia date from the late antique period. The most important early architectural evidence of North Rhine-Westphalia is the Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne in Aachen , the main architectural work of the Carolingian Renaissance . Outstanding examples of recent architectural history are above all the numerous industrial monuments of the industrial centers on the Rhine and Ruhr.
North Rhine-Westphalia never formed a unified cultural area and is only since 1946-47 as a country , a government unit . Since the development of the current state's architectural history mostly took place in a German or European context, there is no architecture that can be characterized as specifically North Rhine-Westphalian. In the 1920s, there was a broad and cityscape-defining building activity in the architectural style of brick expressionism in the centers of the Rhenish-Westphalian region , which historically connects this area with the centers of northern Germany, where this trend also dominated at times. Generally defining cultural-historical constants are the territorial and denominational fragmentation of the area, the dependence of the sub-areas on different, often distant centers as well as different social, cultural and economic developments in the sub-areas. These circumstances led to the fact that in North Rhine-Westphalia there are a large number of different cultural areas and cultural layers with correspondingly different settlement and construction forms as well as architectural traditions. Some regional developments, such as the Weser Renaissance , had their focus in today's North Rhine-Westphalia, but never had an impact on the entire area of the state today. Therefore there is no typical North Rhine-Westphalian architectural style. In the course of globalization , international interdependencies of communication structures, corporations, investors, the availability of materials and technologies, the prestige requirements of the client as well as international competitions and tenders are increasingly shaping large parts of the building activity in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The only German winner of the Pritzker Prize , the world's most prestigious award for architecture, is the North Rhine-Westphalian architect Gottfried Böhm . The Baroque architect Johann Conrad Schlaun was a famous and style-defining master builder who worked in parts of the Rhineland and Westphalia . The Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Mies van der Rohe should be addressed as the world's most influential and well-known architect from what is now North Rhine-Westphalia .
The building of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia in the government district of the state capital Düsseldorf is considered to be the most important architectural document of the state representation of North Rhine-Westphalia .
Sacred buildings
Churches and chapels
The Church of St. Gereon is one of the twelve large Romanesque basilicas in Cologne's old town. St. Gereon, whose history goes back to Cologne's Roman times , is an outstanding example of late antique architecture. Its building core from late antiquity makes the church one of the oldest buildings in the country. The largest tourist attraction in the country and at the same time in the Federal Republic is the Cologne Cathedral with around 6 million visitors annually. After the Milan Cathedral , Cologne Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Like the Aachen Cathedral, it is one of the World Heritage Sites . Another architecturally outstanding church is the Altenberg Cathedral , which is one of the largest simultaneous churches in Germany. There are other domes in Essen , Minden , Münster and Paderborn .
Peter Zumthor's field chapel for Holy Brother Klaus , built in 2007, is an outstanding testimony to contemporary Christian chapels in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Monasteries
Corvey Monastery is one of the most outstanding and best-preserved monastery complexes from the Carolingian era .
Mosques
More recently, the Merkez Mosque in Duisburg, which opened in 2008, has made a name for itself because it is the largest mosque in the country and because it represents a new, significant facet of the North Rhine-Westphalian religious landscape with its Islamic - Ottoman construction program . The DITIB Central Mosque in Cologne , which was also controversially discussed during its planning and construction period , was opened in 2018; its design comes from Gottfried and Paul Böhm .
See also: List of monasteries and monasteries in NRW
Secular buildings
Palaces and castles
The Augustusburg and Falkenlust palaces in Brühl are outstanding examples of the Baroque and Rococo styles . The surrounding castle park is one of the most beautiful works of landscape architecture in the country. Another well-known palace is the Westphalian Versailles : Nordkirchen Palace in Münsterland. Schloss Burg was the ancestral seat of the Counts and Dukes of Berg . Popular destination and solid "inventory" of the Rhine Romanticism is the castle ruin Drachenfels in the Siebengebirge .
See also: List of castles, palaces and noble residences in NRW
Town halls
One of the most famous town halls in North Rhine-Westphalia is the historic town hall in Münster . In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was negotiated there. The town hall was destroyed in the Second World War and then simply reconstructed. The town hall is still considered one of the most important architectural monuments and one of the most beautiful secular buildings of the Gothic. The royal meal of the newly crowned Roman-German emperors was held in Aachen's town hall , which was built in the 14th century in the Gothic style . The International Charlemagne Prize is awarded annually in the town hall . The baroque town hall in Bonn is best known for numerous state guests who visited the town hall during Bonn's capital city. The historic town hall in Bocholt from the 17th century is an example of the Dutch Renaissance in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Cologne City Hall is one of the oldest documented city hall buildings in Germany. It was built in the 14th century and badly damaged during the war. Nevertheless, the partially reconstructed renaissance-style town hall arbor and the town hall tower are significant examples of medieval architecture in North Rhine-Westphalia. The town hall of the small town of Lemgo, which is Gothic in its core, and a building core from the 14th century is one of the most beautiful town halls of the Weser Renaissance . The old town hall in East Westphalia, Minden, dates back to the 13th century and was originally built in the Gothic style. It was badly damaged in the last war, but the original Gothic arcade from the 13th century has been preserved. Other very old town halls are, for example, in Brilon , Warburg , Erkelenz , Hattingen . The town hall in Remscheid was built around 1905, and its location and bulky architecture have shaped the townscape to this day.
The Bensberg town hall from the 1960s by Gottfried Böhm is an award-winning example of new town hall buildings from the 20th century. Alfred Fischer created the Hans Sachs House in Gelsenkirchen, one of the most important modern town halls. Friedrich Pützer's town hall in Oberhausen comes from the same era as the Hans Sachs House.
Residential houses and housing developments
One of the most famous residential buildings in the country is the Villa Hügel in Essen. It is considered the most outstanding example of the castle-like houses of the industrialists in the Ruhr area. The Margarethenhöhe settlement, also located in Essen, is one of the most ambitious and successful workers' settlements on the Rhine and Ruhr. The colliery operators built pioneering workers' settlements in the vicinity of their business premises, in which the industrial barons often also had social responsibility for their employees, although the focus was mostly on an economic advantage. The themed route workers' settlements combines examples of this type of settlement. Their counterpart - the villas of their employers - are summarized in the themed route entrepreneur villas . A radical example of postmodernism is the house without properties in Cologne.
Architecture in the course of the conversion of former industrial areas
Examples of urban development in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are the Medienhafen in Düsseldorf, the Duisburg Inner Harbor , the Rheinauhafen on the banks of the Rhine in Cologne and the Neue Mitte Oberhausen . In Düsseldorf it is u. a. the buildings by Frank O. Gehry (“ Neuer Zollhof ”), which made the Medienhafen famous; in Cologne, this is especially true for the crane houses in Hadi Teheranis . These examples are exemplary of the transformation of former industrial areas, mostly already derelict, in the middle of the city, which were given a new purpose in the course of the change to a knowledge society. The Emscher Park International Building Exhibition was particularly groundbreaking for these urban planning responses to structural change .
New university buildings
In the second half of the 20th century, new universities were set up in North Rhine-Westphalia as part of the educational expansion and in response to the onset of structural change. The universities in Bochum , Düsseldorf , Paderborn , Siegen , Wuppertal and Bielefeld represent the university buildings of that time. The architects and clients endeavored to accommodate universities on a campus with short distances or even more densely, as in the example of Bielefeld, completely in one building complex. The buildings built with a lot of concrete are primarily functionally oriented and, as in the case of Bochum University, are still controversial today. The newer type is the Zollverein cube , which was built in 2006 directly next to the Zeche Zollverein and is used by the Folkwang University of the Arts . The award-winning design comes from the Pritzker Prize winners Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa from the SANAA office . The SuperC built at RWTH Aachen University , on the other hand, has a rather unusually sculptural shape.
Museum buildings
Only a few architecturally particularly outstanding museum buildings in North Rhine-Westphalia date from the 19th century or even from earlier periods. Historical museum ensembles comparable to Berlin's Museum Island cannot be found in North Rhine-Westphalia. In contrast to the large capitals of German or European states, which had or could come into possession of correspondingly rich cultural treasures and thus lay the foundation stone for important and traditional art collections, for which the mostly absolutist rulers sometimes have magnificent museum buildings or entire museum quarters that shape the cityscape established, important art collections in North Rhine-Westphalia developed in most cases only with the economic rise of today's national territory. Rich industrialists were often active as patrons . Few of today's most popular museums are housed in historical buildings. Examples are the Koenig Zoological Museum in Bonn (built from 1912) or the Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf, which is housed in a monumental building complex designed by Wilhelm Kreis in 1926 for the GeSoLei exhibition . A relatively small museum is Haus Lange and Haus Esters , which Ludwig Mies van der Rohe originally designed in the late 1920s as a residential building in the Bauhaus style that he helped shape.
Most of the museums that attract the most public are, however, almost without exception housed in modern buildings. The architecturally most outstanding new museum buildings or simply the most famous museum buildings of this era and the recent past are briefly presented below.
The first major new museum building after the Second World War was the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, which opened in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1968 and based on a design by Philip Johnson , which is still one of the most stylish buildings in Germany in the international style that Johnson helped shape . The Roman-Germanic Museum , which opened in Cologne in 1974, is characterized by the striking use of glass and exposed aggregate concrete and its strictly cubic design language, above all the integration of a Roman mosaic floor found on site . The building for the Ludwig Art Museum by the architects Busmann + Haberer , also opened in Cologne in 1986, shows a particularly memorable roof design. The building of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (design by Otto Weitling and Hans Dissing ), which opened in Düsseldorf at the same time , is particularly striking because of its facade made of polished syenite . Planning for the art and exhibition hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn began during the time of the Bonn Republic . It was built according to a design by Gustav Peichl and opened in 1992. The neighboring Kunstmuseum Bonn , which opened at the same time, made a name for itself, primarily due to its roof construction and its openness. The new building for the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, which opened in 2001, was designed by Oswald Mathias Ungers . Its cubic shape is particularly memorable. In 2004, the Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Andō built a light exhibition building for the Langen Foundation in Neuss using the building materials typical of Andō, concrete, glass and steel. In the East Westphalian Herford is hoped by the Opened in 2005, the Design Museum Marta by Frank Gehry on the Bilbao effect . Gehry's deconstructivist design language is typical in Herford, as is the case with his buildings in Düsseldorf's Medienhafen . The Kolumba Museum of Sacred Art by Peter Zumthor, which opened in Cologne in 2007, shows a reduced, cubist design language typical of many of his buildings, the use of high-quality materials and natural stone facades. The inclusion of Gottfried Böhm's chapel “Madonna in den Trümmern” from 1957 and the ruins of St. Kolumba are unusual . The latest museum buildings are the new Ruhr Museum and the new building for the Folkwang Museum . The Essen Ruhr Museum was designed by Rem Koolhaas . It has been open to visitors since 2010. From an architectural point of view, it is particularly interesting that the exhibition rooms have been integrated into the coal washing room of the Zeche Zollverein . The spectacularly illuminated access structures and the links between the individual levels of this industrial structure were the focus of Koolhaas' work. As for the Ruhrmuseum, a new building was opened for the Folkwang Museum in the 2010 Capital of Culture year . David Chipperfield designed bright, light-flooded exhibition rooms. In 2015, the German Football Museum in Dortmund was completed after three years of construction . See also: Museums in North Rhine-Westphalia , List of Museums in North Rhine-Westphalia
Technical buildings
Industrial buildings
Hardly any other region in Europe offers as many outstanding industrial structures as North Rhine-Westphalia. Most of them are remnants of the North Rhine-Westphalian coal and steel industry . The Zeche Zollverein has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Known more buildings of this kind are for example the Gasometer Oberhausen , the Lindenbrauerei or Dortmunder U . Many industrial monuments in the Ruhr area are connected to one another in the route of industrial culture.
See also: List of technical monuments in North Rhine-Westphalia , Märkische Straße Technical Cultural Monuments , Road of Work , Road of Energy
Traffic structures
The Minden waterway intersection is one of the most impressive historical traffic structures in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Also in Minden, the fortress station , which was once built as the terminus of the Cologne-Minden railway in the middle of the 19th century, has largely been preserved in its original state. Architecturally, it was fitted into the complex of the Prussian fortress Minden . Its counterpart in the west is the Cologne Messe / Deutz train station, also largely preserved in its original historical condition . In addition to the island train station in Minden, another island train station in East Westphalia, the Warburg train station , is still largely preserved in its original condition, albeit with less traffic from this early railway era. Today's Wuppertal Central Station also dates from the middle of the 19th century . Its classicistic reception hall from 1848 is one of the oldest surviving station buildings in a major German city. In terms of style, he was followed decades later by the reception building of the Wuppertal-Barmen train station, built in 1913 in the style of neoclassicism . The Hagen main station , which opened at the beginning of the 20th century, is one of the few stations in the Ruhr area with a largely preserved neo-baroque station building. In the Mark Werdohl there is the train station Werdohl another about the same time erected representative neo-baroque architecture station. Style-defining examples of the train stations of the 1930s are the factual, modern , but at the same time monumental-looking train stations in Duisburg , Düsseldorf and Oberhausen . The largest train station in the country in terms of the number of passengers is Cologne Central Station . Its historic steel roof structure spans one of the largest train station halls in Europe. Although the historic counter and reception building was removed after the war after the war was severely damaged, the new building, like Bochum Central Station, is one of the best-known examples of post-war architecture of the 1950s. The visual interplay between the cathedral , the Hohenzollern Bridge , which runs towards its main axis and almost directly connects to the platforms, as well as the mix of epochs from the medieval cathedral, the steel arches of the Hohenzollern Bridge and the station hall, and the post-war ticket hall, which is still modern today a unique ensemble. The Cologne / Bonn Airport train station is an example of 21st century train station buildings.
The Wuppertal suspension railway , which opened in 1901, is one of the most unique forms of transport in Germany. Its steel supporting structure and its unique stops make the suspension railway a symbol of the city of Wuppertal .
See also: List of passenger stations in North Rhine-Westphalia
Farmhouses
Westphalia, in particular, is located in the area of distribution of the Fachhallenhaus typical of all of Northern Germany , which in rural North Rhine-Westphalia predominantly appears as a farmhouse, but in the Westphalian cities also as a residential or commercial building. These mostly half-timbered buildings are u. a. Characterized by a central hall , storage floor above, stables to the side of the hall and living rooms and other work rooms behind the hall. Access to the hall is usually through a gate, the so-called hall door, located on the gable side. The largest farmhouses are designed as four-column houses . The beams on the gable side are usually elaborately decorated, the gable is usually crowned by the typical crossed horse heads , in East Westphalia mostly by pegs . In particular, the gate beams of the hall door are often intricately carved and painted. The color scheme is typical of the Westphalian half-timbered courtyards: black bars, white infills (once traditionally made of clay and straw). In western Westphalia, brick-built farmhouses are more common (mostly red brick was used, sometimes only to fill in the beams), but in principle they also have the floor plan of a half-timbered house. In eastern Westphalia, brick construction is usually only found in "newer" farmhouses.
The surrounding cottages are mostly built as a "small copy" of the large farmhouses . A similar urban modification of the hall house was the hall house , which in principle also had a large hall in the front part. However, these houses mostly served less agricultural purposes. The focus was on the function as business premises for dealers or craftsmen. Particularly magnificent hall houses and hall houses were built in the Weser Renaissance style, primarily in the North Rhine-Westphalian Weser Uplands. They are characterized by particularly elaborate gable shapes and magnificent wood carvings to decorate the beams.
Sports facilities
The sports facilities in the country are characterized by great sobriety everywhere, if one ignores the emotional significance of these places. Functional buildings predominate in terms of architecture. Architectural highlights comparable to the Berlin Olympic Stadium or the Allianz Arena in Munich are only partially recognizable.
The largest football stadium in the country and at the same time in Germany is the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, which is best known by its traditional name, the Westfalenstadion . The striking yellow steel girders of the roof structure of the stadium, which has a capacity of over 80,000, are one of Dortmund's landmarks. The Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen , which can hold around 55,000 spectators and was built in the immediate vicinity of the old park stadium , has a special feature of a lawn that moves outdoors and a movable roof that covers the entire interior of the stadium when closed. The ESPRIT arena in Düsseldorf is the third largest stadium in the country with a capacity of around 54,600 spectators. Like the Schalker Arena, the stadium is multifunctional thanks to its lockable roof, which enables music concerts, for example. Of the major stadiums in the country listed here, it has the most architecturally outstanding facade design. Other special features include heating in the interior and the unusual seating design. The fourth largest stadium in North Rhine-Westphalia is Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach , which opened in 2004 and has a capacity of around 54,000 spectators. The next largest stadium is the Rheinenergiestadion in Cologne (50,300 seats), which is traditionally also known as the Müngersdorfer Stadion . The BayArena in Leverkusen (around 30,000 seats), which is relatively small for a Bundesliga stadium , has a particularly striking roof structure.
The largest facility for athletics events in terms of spectator capacity is the Vestische Kampfbahn (also Gladbeck Stadium ) in Gladbeck . It has around 38,000 seats.
The largest “sports hall” is the Lanxess Arena in Cologne with a maximum capacity of around 20,000 spectators. Its “handle-shaped” roof construction, which is visible from afar, makes this multifunctional arena an element that characterizes Cologne's urban area on the right bank of the Rhine. In addition to all kinds of events, ice hockey, handball and basketball are regularly played in the hall. The largest tennis stadium is the Gerry Weber Stadium in Halle (Westphalia) (12,300 seats), the roof of which can completely cover the lawn and the spectator stands of the stadium. In addition to tennis, special handball games and regular music events are held there.
A largely unique facility in the world of equestrian sport is located in Aachen , where the traditional equestrian tournament CHIO Aachen is held every year .
See also: List of the largest football stadiums in Germany
Military structures
The oldest buildings with a military purpose date from Roman times. But they are only preserved as ground monuments. In the areas on the left bank of the Rhine in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, the Romans set up military camps as quarters for the Roman occupation units. Cities developed from some of these camps. These include Bonn ( Bonnensia, Bonna ), Neuss ( Novaesium ) or today's Xanten, which was built near Colonia Ulpia Traiana and near important military camps. On the right bank of the Rhine, militarily secured bridgehead was today's Cologne-Deutz ( Divitia ). These archaeological sites are remnants of the Lower Germanic Limes , which included other buildings, some of which have not yet been localized. In the course of the expansion into Germania Magna , the Roman troops set up military camps along the Lippe, some of which were occupied for several years. This included, for example, the Roman camp at Haltern near Haltern am See . The Germanic and Celtic refugee castles from the La Tène period in today's North Rhine-Westphalia are partly even older than these Roman military buildings . Most of the time only the remains of the ramparts are preserved . These include, for example more in Weserbergland buildings preserved as archaeological monument as the Wittekindsburg that Dehmer castle or Herlingsburg .
In particular, the Prussian fortresses in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, along with the castles in North Rhine-Westphalia, were once important military installations. The glacis of the old Minden fortress and many military facilities in Minden were razed, but most of the fortress station in Minden and its station barracks , the army bakery , the provisions store, several forts and several barracks buildings have been preserved. This includes the defense barracks, which houses the Prussian Museum , where the history of Minden as a Prussian administrative and fortress town is presented. The Prussian fortress ring around Cologne was also largely razed. However, some forts and other fortifications have also been preserved in Cologne. Other fortresses in Prussia were Lippstadt , Moers and Wesel (see also Citadel Wesel ). The fortress Jülich (see also Citadel Jülich ) became Prussian late.
City walls are largely preserved in only a few cities in North Rhine-Westphalia. The growing cities of today's North Rhine-Westphalia laid down the medieval city walls, which had become ineffective against modern weapons, in order to expand unhindered. The Essen city wall , for example, was razed in the 19th century. Bad Münstereifel , Blankenberg , Warburg , Kempen , Soest and Zons have largely preserved city walls . The mighty ancient Roman and medieval city walls of Cologne were almost completely razed. However, some city gates have been preserved in Cologne. Remains of the city wall and some city gates have also been preserved in Aachen and Blomberg . In Duisburg , reconstructed sections of the wall were added to the remains of the city wall.
The surviving structures of the West Wall in the west of the country date from the period between the World Wars and the Second World War . Well-known military buildings of the Cold War are the alternative seat of North Rhine-Westphalia in Urft and the underground guidance system Castle Gate in Linnich, which is still in operation today .
See also: List of bunkers in North Rhine-Westphalia , List of fortresses in North Rhine-Westphalia
Landscape architecture
The parks in North Rhine-Westphalia are an important recreational area. The four regional garden routes deserve special mention: "Gardens of cultural events in East Westphalia", "Garden route of the Münsterland palace and park landscape", "Parks and gardens as an element of urban development" in the Ruhr area and the "Gardens and parks in the Rhineland, insights - outlooks: Garden, architecture, landscape ”. Many parks are also organized in park networks. Mention should be made of the European Garden Heritage Network , the transnational street of garden art between the Rhine and Maas and the Garden_Landschaft OstWestfalenLippe project . Since 1984, the state has also been organizing state garden shows on a regular basis , the first taking place in Maximilianpark in Hamm. The landmark of this first state horticultural show was the walk-in glass elephant, which, designed by the artist Horst Rellecke , was placed on the former coal washing plant of the Maximilian colliery . The state has also hosted the Federal Garden Show nine times . Well-known parks are u. a. the Grugapark and the Westfalenpark .
See also: Cultural Landscapes in North Rhine-Westphalia , International Building Exhibition Emscher Park
World Heritage Sites
The country's UNESCO World Heritage Sites include Cologne Cathedral , Aachen Cathedral , the Zollverein colliery and coking plant and the Augustusburg and Falkenlust palaces .
The Cologne Cathedral, completed after centuries of permanent construction in 1880, is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe. At the same time, it is the tallest church building in North Rhine-Westphalia and is still one of the tallest structures in the state. It is Cologne's landmark and, with around 6 million visitors, attracts the most visitors to all of Germany's tourist attractions. In 1996, the Cologne Cathedral was classified by UNESCO as one of the European masterpieces of Gothic architecture and declared a World Heritage Site.
The cathedral in Aachen was the ideal center of the Carolingian Empire and the Roman-German Empire . It is the Holy Sepulcher of Charlemagne and the coronation site of many of his successors. The Carolingian octagon in particular is unique for the buildings of the Carolingian era in today's German cultural area. In 1978, Aachen Cathedral and its art treasures were the first German monument to be included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The Augustusburg and Falkenlust castles in Brühl are among the most important Baroque and Rococo buildings in Germany and have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1984. From 1949 to 1996 the Federal Republic of Germany used Augustusburg Castle, which was formerly owned by the Archbishops of Cologne, for receptions for the Federal President. The avenue and palace park between Augustusburg Palace and the smaller Falkenlust hunting lodge are among the most beautiful examples of landscape architecture at the time. The original baroque garden, which has only been partially reconstructed, was significantly converted into a landscape park by the well-known horticultural architect Peter Joseph Lenné .
The Zollverein colliery and coking plant has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001. The extensive industrial site is probably the most typical building among the state's world cultural heritage sites for North Rhine-Westphalia. In operation from the middle of the 19th century, the Zollverein developed into one of the most productive mines in the world. The coking plant was still considered to be one of the most modern coking plants in the world. The Zollverein conveyor systems were shut down in 1986. The coking plant was operated until 1993. After the closure, it was decided to keep the site with the numerous industrial buildings as an industrial monument. Culture workers , a museum for industrial design moved to the site of the colliery and the new Ruhr Museum was inaugurated in the run-up to “ RUHR.2010 - European Capital of Culture ” . This means that the colliery and the coking plant are not only a monument to the industrial history of the Rhine and Ruhr, but also groundbreaking for the subsequent use of such areas.
Historic city centers
Considering its size and the large number of its cities, North Rhine-Westphalia has only a few large-scale historical inner cities. Due to the history of North Rhine-Westphalia , large cities that were planned to be developed into residential cities and comparable to Potsdam , Berlin or Munich with corresponding representative buildings can only be found to a limited extent; the small-state territories , often governed as secondary countries , however, had some residential cities of regional charisma. An example of this is Detmold, residence of the princes of Lippe . Other small residential cities are Brühl and Bonn . Large axes or splendid boulevards such as Düsseldorf's Königsallee or the Cologne Rings , representative squares and parks or the well-ordered city plans of absolutist planned cities are very rare in North Rhine-Westphalia or, such as Krefeld's city plan, come from other eras. The cities in the Ruhr area, which were growing rapidly during industrialization, expanded in part unplanned and destroyed the few historic old town areas in the otherwise originally rural area. Even basically historical cities such as Dortmund or Essen changed their cityscape so radically that you can hardly find it in any other German region. In addition, the cities in the economic centers were particularly affected by bombing during the Second World War . The remaining historic inner city areas were largely largely destroyed. Only a few cities such as Lemgo , Soest , Höxter , Blomberg , Zons or Freudenberg are exceptions . Typically, these cities are mostly outside the large industrial centers on the Rhine and Ruhr. The Münster city center around the Prinzipalmarkt was rebuilt in a greatly modified form after the Second World War compared to the pre-war state. However, the reconstruction was carried out on the old parcels and using the original materials and design elements. In addition to the area bombing of the Second World War, car-friendly city and traffic planning , processes of tertiaryisation and the area renovations carried out in the 1970s led to further heavy losses of historical building fabric. In particular, the old towns in the metropolises, such as Düsseldorf's old town or Cologne's old town , were subject to these profound changes. Today they present themselves largely as shopping and entertainment districts.
Monuments
The two largest and most famous monuments are the Hermannsdenkmal in Lippe and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Monument at Porta Westfalica .
The 50 "largest" structures in North Rhine-Westphalia
In the TV series “The Best in the West”, Westdeutsche Rundfunk presented fifty buildings in North Rhine-Westphalia in January 2011 in the episode “The 50 largest buildings in North Rhine-Westphalia”, which were determined in advance by the audience in a telephone vote. Objective criteria were not applied. In this context, “size” primarily relates to the popularity and / or awareness of the building. Were elected to the list (1st place = most votes):
- Rank 01: Cologne Cathedral , Cologne
- Place 02: Hermannsdenkmal , Detmold
- Rank 03: Zeche Zollverein , Essen
- Rank 04: Aachen Cathedral , Aachen
- Place 05: Dortmunder U , Dortmund
- Rank 06: Drachenburg Castle , Königswinter
- Place 07: Roman Museum , Xanten
- Rank 08: Villa Hügel , Essen
- Place 09: Müngsten Bridge between Solingen and Remscheid
- 10th place: Gasometer , Oberhausen
- 11th place: Augustusburg Castle , Brühl
- Rank 12: Henrichenburg ship lift , Henrichenburg
- Rank 13: Nordkirchen Castle , Nordkirchen
- Place 14: Zeche Zollern , Dortmund
- 15th place: Veltins-Arena , Gelsenkirchen
- 16th place: Landscape Park Duisburg , Duisburg
- Rank 17: Altena Castle , Altena
- 18th place: Folkwang Museum , Essen
- Rank 19: Altenberger Dom , Odenthal
- 20th place: Jahrhunderthalle , Bochum
- 21st place: Münster correctional facility , Münster
- 22nd place: Beethovenhaus , Bonn
- 23rd place: Elisenbrunnen , Aachen
- Rank 24: Westfalenhalle , Dortmund
- Place 25: Bartholomäuskapelle , Paderborn
- Rank 26: State Parliament , Düsseldorf
- Rank 27: Erbdrostenhof , Münster
- 28th place: Eckmännecken , Warburg
- Rank 29: St. Quirinus-Münster in Neuss
- Rank 30: City Theater Münster , Münster
- 31st place: Zollhof Medienhafen , Düsseldorf
- Rank 32: Aalto-Theater , Essen
- Rank 33: Margarethenhöhe settlement in Essen
- Rank 34: Mosque Marxloh , Duisburg
- Rank 35: Altenbekener Viadukt , Altenbeken
- Rank 36: pilgrimage church Neviges , Velbert
- Rank 37: Chancellor's bungalow , Bonn
- 38th place: milk mushroom , Borgholzhausen
- Rank 39: German Mining Museum , Bochum
- Place 40: Astenturm and weather station , Hochsauerlandkreis
- Place 41: House Rüschhaus , Münster
- Rank 42: Corvey Monastery , Höxter
- Rank 43: Schauspielhaus Bochum , Bochum
- Rank 44: Stiepeler village church , Bochum
- Rank 45: TV tower Florian , Dortmund
- Rank 46: Essen Minster , Essen
- Rank 47: Ständehaus in Düsseldorf
- Rank 48: Kranhäuser , Cologne
- Place 49: Old Town Hall , Bonn
- Place 50: Wiesenkirche in Soest
Tallest building in the country
The highest skyscraper in the country is the Post Tower (162.5 meters) in Bonn. It is around 5 m higher than Cologne Cathedral , making it the second tallest building in the country. The third tallest building is the Kölnturm . The Colonia House in Cologne is the fourth tallest building in the country and the tallest residential building in Europe. The highest telecommunications tower is the Colonius in Cologne. Other telecommunications towers are the Rheinturm in Düsseldorf and the Florian tower in Dortmund .
See also: List of the tallest structures in NRW
Architects
See: Well-known architects from North Rhine-Westphalia
literature
- M: AI (Ed.): North Rhine-Westphalia: 60 years of architecture and engineering . Klartext-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2007, ISBN 3-89861-646-0 .
- Martin Halfmann (Foreword): Baukultur in NRW 2008. Architecture Prize North Rhine-Westphalia . Ed .: Uta Joeressen, Thorsten Scheer. 1st edition. Verlag der Buchhandlung König, 2007, ISBN 3-86560-338-6 (see also previous volumes for 2002 and 2005).
- Eckhard Bolenz, Markus Krause, Florian Monheim : The other beauty: industrial culture in North Rhine-Westphalia . Greven Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-7743-0466-6 .
- see also The Architectural and Art Monuments of Westphalia and The Art Monuments of the Rhine Province
Web links
- Ministry of Construction and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MBV)
- Historic city and town centers in North Rhine-Westphalia . Working group on historical city centers in NRW. Retrieved December 26, 2010.
- Chamber of Architects North Rhine-Westphalia
- The database for architecture and engineering in NRW: baukunst-nrw
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oldest stone building north of the Alps in new splendor , article from March 4, 2016 in the portal focus.de , accessed on March 5, 2016
- ^ Wolfgang Pehnt : Between modesty and hubris. On the architecture of the post-war period in North Rhine-Westphalia. In: Sonja Hnilica, Markus Jager, Wolfgang Sonne (ed.): At second glance. Post-war architecture in North Rhine-Westphalia . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1482-4
- ↑ The 50 largest structures in North Rhine-Westphalia. (No longer available online.) Westdeutscher Rundfunk Cologne, January 4, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 10, 2010 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ' N , 7 ° 33' E