Innenhafen (Inner Harbour)

The Innenhafen is Duisburg's most successful urban regeneration project and the most pleasant part of the city to spend an afternoon. Once the working commercial harbour of Europe's largest inland port, it fell into dereliction in the 1970s and 1980s before being redeveloped from the 1990s onward according to a masterplan by Foster and Partners. The result is a coherent waterfront district: old brick warehouses converted into restaurants and offices, new buildings inserted between them, and the harbour basin itself the focus of it all.

The main cultural draws — the Museum Küppersmühle and the Werhahnmühle (a former mill complex with exhibition space and restaurants) — are both here. The Schwanentorbrücke, a vertical-lift bridge dating from 1935, still crosses the harbour and provides the best viewpoint over the basin. In summer the waterfront fills with outdoor terraces; in winter it is quieter but no less handsome.

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A story
The Inner Harbour was once the commercial heart of Europe's largest inland port, handling grain and industrial goods from the Rhine. By the 1980s it had fallen derelict. The redevelopment masterplan — drawn up by Norman Foster's office in the early 1990s — attracted a series of major architects and preserved the 19th-century warehouses and mill buildings that now house restaurants, offices, and museums.

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