Villa Huegel, Lake Baldeney and the Ruhr Atoll

Date: Mai 19, 2010
Time: 9.00 am – 1.00 pm
Meeting point: Info-Stand Essener Marketing Gesellschaft, Foyer CongressCenter West

The Villa Huegel is the “Buckingham Palace of the Ruhrgebiet”. It was built in the 1860s on a hillside above Lake Baldeney in the south of Essen by the millionaire steel magnate Alfred Krupp. Krupp had fixed ideas on how the place should look: cosy, domestic and stringent yet magnificent enough to receive Kings and Kaisers alike. To this end he had hundreds of fully grown trees uprooted and re-planted to make a magnificent English-style park in the grounds. The house now contains 269 rooms and is used for state receptions, exhibitions, and concerts. It’s well worth a visit for its atmosphere of 19th century entrepreneurial exclusivity. There is a fascinating exhibition on the history of the Krupp company in the annexe.
Lake Baldeney is a mecca for day-trippers, joggers and skateboarders, as well as offering boat excursions up and down the Ruhr. In 2010 it will contain an extra attraction –  the Ruhr Atoll. Following the slogan “Art is Energy – Energy is Movement” scientists and artists have taken their inspiration from renewable sources of energy to fill the lake with spectacular man-made“ power islands” up to 150 square metres in size.