The Rheinturm

The Rheinturm

The Rheinturm (Rhine Tower) is a prominent icon of Düsseldorf’s Rhine landscape. It is located on the edge of the southern city centre at the entrance to the Media Harbour, directly next to the North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament building and the building of the Westdeutschen Rundfunk broadcasting company.

The Rhine Tower (construction period 1979 - 1982, architect H. Deilmann) is 240.5 metres tall and has a restaurant 172.5 metres up in the air, which revolves around its axis once per hour (for technical reasons, the platform revolves in one direction from 1p.m. – 4:30p.m. and in the other direction from 6:00p.m. to 12a.m.; the restaurant remains static for the remaining time).
 
There is a self-service restaurant and a viewing platform from which you have breath-taking views over Düsseldorf: the Media Harbour, the Old Town, the Hofgarten (Court Garden), Königsallee and the Rhine with its family of bridges lie at the foot of the Rhine Tower; if there is good weather, you can even see the Bergisches Land mountain range region and the city of Cologne.
 
The function of the illuminating circular portholes of the Rhine Tower is unique worldwide: separated by air traffic control lights, 39 of its 62 portholes form a decimal clock at three different height intervals over the 160-metre-long shaft of the tower.
The 62 portholes are each equipped with twelve LEDs, which consist of a group of four red, four green and four blue LEDs. Different colours can be generated by alternating the extent to which certain LEDs are dimmed up.