Mülheim an der Ruhr
— — a river city that learned to slow down.
Not only on a wall.
“The Ruhr makes a long bend here, and the city sits on both banks of it. Once a coal town, then a quieter one — the last colliery closed in 1966, earlier than most of its neighbours in the valley. The Wasserbahnhof still ties up the white-and-blue boats that run down to the Baldeneysee. Schloss Broich, on the left bank, has stood since the 880s.
Mülheim an der Ruhr, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mülheim an der Ruhr sits in the western Ruhr area of North Rhine-Westphalia, on the lower Ruhr river a few kilometres before it meets the Rhine at Duisburg. About 170,000 people live within its borders. The city was a coal-mining and tanning town through the 19th and 20th centuries; the last colliery, Rosenblumendelle, closed in 1966 — earlier than most of its neighbours. The Ruhr divides the historic Altstadt on the right bank from the Broich quarter on the left, the two halves joined by the Schlossbrücke.
The Ruhr enters the city as a slow, meander-prone river and leaves it as the head of a stretched chain of barrage lakes. The Kahlenbergsee just downstream and the Baldeneysee in Essen, completed in 1933, were built to even out flow and store drinking water for the valley. The Wasserbahnhof on the right bank still works as the home pier of the Weisse Flotte passenger boats, which have run between Mülheim and Kettwig since 1927. The water is clean enough now that rowers train on it most mornings.
Schloss Broich, on the left bank just above the river, is among the oldest preserved fortifications north of the Alps. The lower walls date to around 883, raised against a Norman raiding party that had pushed up the Rhine. The ringwall plan is still legible in the courtyard, and a stretch of the original Carolingian masonry survives in the south curtain. The castle now houses a small history museum and a concert hall that hosts the summer chamber music festival. Admission is free on the first Sunday of each month.