Duisburg-Nord – Park of Industrial Memory

Almost every city sooner or later faces with the question of what to do with no longer working industrial objects? In many cases these areas are just left abandoned for many years, some of these areas are demolished and then for many years engaged in the restoration process in order to eventually become suitable for further use, and there are examples when, for example, the plant is left in its almost original condition, but changes its function. The landscape-architectural Park Duisburg-Nord has been realized on the site of a large steel factory called “Meiderich” in the German city of Duisburg. 

The plant completed its work in 1985, and at the disposal of the city were almost 200 hectares of land with which it was necessary to do something. As it often happens in the European architectural practice, a competition was announced with the participation in it of five experienced international companies with the task to create a park in the former industrial area. 

It was won by the German firm Latz + Partner, which came to the most original solution and suggested to preserve the steel production factory in its original state, so that future generations would get an opportunity to better understand and explore its industrial past (as an example, explaining the concept of the project one can imagine the situation as if the grandfather, who had worked at the plant, could show it to his grandchildren and to explain to them for what an why certain machines were used and so on). The landscape company head – Peter Latz demonstrated that it is possible to eliminate the contaminated soil by phytoremediation process, to find a new use to all the old industrial structures and the previously full of sewage water channel to use later for the permanent site cleaning.

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 Text: Elizaveta Klepanova