Fresh on the table
Five for 53. The metropolitan gateways.
The twin arched bridge above the Rhine-Hernecanal in the Nordstern Park, Gelsenkirchen / Photo: RVR/Thomas Wolf
The Ruhr is now being discovered by early 21st century Bohemians. If the phrase “pioneering age” still has a meaning, this is where you will be able to experience it. The title of the European Capital of Culture will be a powerful boost in projecting the 53 towns and cities onto the European stage and transforming them into a single major organism that will function like an open city.
The theatres, opera houses and concert halls, the region’s festivals, the museums, creative businesses, universities and academies, the information and economic centres, all make up a metropolitan core for millions of people in an area dominated by the background hum of tradition, trends and traffic. “Essen for the Ruhr” will be giving this urban cultural network a modern spatial matrix equally comprehensible for both local inhabitants and visitors.
Visitor centres are being created in five central locations to function as tourist “hubs” for the Ruhr Metropolis. They are the arrival terminals at the heart of newly developed urban centres containing an attractive mix of venues, events and cultural facilities of every shape and size.
Essen, Duisburg, Oberhausen, Bochum and Dortmund are the locations for the visitor centres – and are thus the gateways to the Ruhr Metropolis. They are the base camps and central departure points for cultural expeditions into the various urban and rural landscapes between the Rhine, the Lippe and the Ruhr River – the visitor axis for the programme. In addition, artistic “programme passages” along the Ruhr, the Hellweg trading route, the new Emscher Valley and the river Lippe will offer new dimensions of outstanding metropolitan experiences to visitors from all over Europe.