The Landscape Park is now a popular tourist destination, and includes a light show. Source: Rolf Kaul Photography.
As in Pittsburgh, the government initiated redevelopment of the Ruhr area, but in this case, given the scale of the problem and the polycentric nature of the region, the intervention took place at the state (North Rhine-Westphalia) level and not the local. This top-down approach resulted in the creation of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) at Emscher Park in 1989. The IBA Emscher Park is best described as a state-sponsored regional planning entity that solicits and supports individual redevelopment projects throughout the Ruhr Valley area.
The state gave the IBA a ten year mission to achieve environmental and economic revitalization of the Ruhr Valley through:
- Multiple stakeholder approach - involvement and cooperation of 17 municipalities
- Design competitions for projects
- Substantial public funding
The Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord was the first major redevelopment project of the IBA’s travails. It was initiated in 1990 and completed in 1999, just within IBA’s ten year time period. Because of the desire to create a successful “showcase” project to kick off the major regional redevelopment endeavor, the Landscape Park received a substantial amount of public funding. Subsequent projects received some public funds, but were primarily financed privately by developers who competed for the right to build projects in the area for the Building Exhibition.