A Tree Grows in the Media Harbour?

Media Harbour at dusk, taken on one of the nights I was able to leave 'early.'

Spring has come to the grey, dark Dorf. The last few days the sun has been staying out most of the day, instead of the few seconds it takes for the sun to jump from behind one cloud before hiding behind another.

If you're like me and have the luck (or lack of it) to be working in an office with windows, it's a great feeling. You look outside, you see the sun, you want to get out for a walk and feed your UV addiction and then sit under a tree.

But in my work neighbourhood, the Media Harbour, that's not really possible. I think we can blame Frank Gehry for that one. Well, no, not really blame blame him, but he started this.

He designed the first set of fancy wavy modern buildings here, which inspired more people to plop more fancy glass buildings here. Frank Gehry knew how to design a building, but you can't apply that design to a whole neighbourhood. 

That is what was done with Dusseldorf's Media Harbour, which is now lined with modern or post-modern or post-post-modern (is that a thing? I think that's a thing!) buildings with wavy lines or glass covered everything or old brick industrial facades or coloured alien people festooned on them. 

The architectural weirdness of the Media Harbour.

These smart designers thought of everything to make the buildings, and the area, look cool – and it all does look very cool – except for adding a few trees for actual, natural coolness.

Picture this. It's a beautiful sunny day out. You walk out of the office and go to the lunch place with the fancy salads. You get those fancy greens to go with the intent to sit beneath a tree or on a park bench and munch on your arugula and goat cheese and read a book. 

But you look around the harbour for a spot.

Where do the media workers eat? On the shadeless wooden bridge thing.

Sorry. Nope! You're going to be enjoying spring's return on Dusseldorf's version of the Concrete Beach. You will be eating on the shadeless wooden bridge thing or on a bench in the cold concrete shade created by one of those po-mo glass slabs.

It wasn't always like this. Two colleagues have pointed out, with sad mopey faces, the spot used to be a great beach bar. Now, it's its place stands the heap of black glass and steel that is the Hyatt. 

A beach bar! That is exactly what this neighbourhood needs. But someone has decided a building should go there and here I am willing to settle for a park. 

On the bright side – I see the bright side because it's spring and I am feeling less pessimistic – there are slivers of green not far from here. 

If you walk for about 10 minutes, you find some park and some benches on the river. If you go 5 minutes more – which requires more time than I have during office hours – you will find a strip of beach along the Rhine. It's no beach bar, but it's a relief to see that the media sprawl has left some nature untouched.

The beach, in not so spring-ish weather.