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Cologne Rheinau Harbour

In English only the Rheinauharbour tour is available.

Rheinauharbour is THE showcase project in urban town renewal in Cologne in this millenium. Outstanding attractivity it gains because of it's central citysite at the waterfront. Especially the three cranehouses - originally designed in the 1992 competition entry by Hadi Teherani (BRT-architects) as bridgehouses - turned out to be a piece of good fortune for Cologne. Today the building-trio describes a new Cologne landmark.

Cologne city-model 2000 with planned highrise buildings opposite of Cologne cathedral -> UNESCO vetoed

Of all things the famous Cologne Cathedral and it's status as UNESCO world cultural heritage sometimes meant to be a bar to further proceedings in town development. A no-skyscraper zone hung over the town's landmark like a steady cloud and knocked out several townplanning projects of starting signal character. In 2006, when Cologne hosted some matches of the FIFA-worldcup, a group of 120 Meter (390 feet) skyscrapers fell victim to the UNESCO-thread to withdraw the world cultural heritage status. The city-gate across the river Rhine around the Deutz-station and trade fair entry  was planned to develop the disadvantaged rightside Cologne. Only the Köln-Triangle survived, but was cut down to 103 meters (cathedral = 157 meters).  

With Rheinauharbour and especially the cranehouses Cologne succeeded in finding a resort. Due to all difficulties the one-million city is not only punctually on the contemporary architectural world stage again. With the quotation of El Lissitzky’s Wolkenbügel (cloud-hanger) – an icon of modern architecture – and in a variation of the old on-site harbour cranes it was able to create a new building-type and world-architecture of great identity and originality.

Cologne and it's Rheinauharbour do not stand alone in Europe as urban renewal projects. The Hamburg Hafencity, Kop-Zuid in Rotterdam or the development alongside the Ij in Amsterdam are other notable examples for latest town planning at the waterfront.
Nowhere however the combination of monument protection, contemporary architecture and construction engineering with a partly spectacular result can be experienced in this concentration as on Cologne's peninsula.

The harbour area cut off the south of Cologne's inner city from the waterside for nearly 100 years, a massive loss of living quality in the city. Today the broad waterside promenade, the Harry-Blum-Place and the Elisabeth-Treskow-Place as well as the bridge towards the chocolate mueseum serve as entrances  and gained river Rhine back for the Cologne Südstadt (southcity) and it's visitors, The new mile at the waterfront is open for all, not just reserved for those who work here and recently are living here upscaled.

“Architecture for all“ is the idea of arcTourLIVE guided tours. Intelligable to all you experience things to know about specific historical details, town planning and architecture live on the spot.

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