Deutzer Hafen

For a long time Deutz had only a small sheltered harbour serving the ferry link to Cologne. The ferry right had been granted by Emperor Otto I to his brother, Archbishop Bruno I, as a hereditary privilege; the hereditary ferry was confirmed in 1417, with a formal charter following in 1428. With no bridge, the ferry was the only way across the river — with tragic consequences: on 9 July 1595 a Deutz ferry sank below the Salzgasse, killing around 50 people. In 1674 a flying reaction ferry replaced the ferry service.

A large harbour was long unthinkable, as the fortress's strict rayon regulations forbade any building nearby until 1907. Before that the bank was marked by the Poller Köpfe, an embankment built from 1560 that was largely destroyed by the severe flood of 1784.

In 1909 the Leysieffer & Lietzmann mills became the first major customer; the later Ellmühle grew out of it, ranking among Europe's most significant mills with an annual capacity of 365,000 tonnes and dominating the harbour's appearance for decades. In the 1920s four electric and three steam-powered cranes were at work here. The Chemische Fabrik Kalk handled salt and phosphates, joined over time by scrap trading, an asphalt mixing plant and a tank farm for calcium carbonate. After storm "Kyrill", around 100,000 tonnes of tree trunks, mostly from the Sauerland, were loaded here for a French sawmill. Cologne's fire brigade has stationed its fireboats at the swing bridge since 1994, and the water police have had their mooring here since 1998.

The urban design competition was won by the Copenhagen firm COBE Architects. Its design turns the industrial heritage — crane tracks, the old unloading crane and the mill buildings — into the "DNA" of the new district. The listed mill building is to be integrated into the residential complex. One special touch: a water basin at the southern end of the harbour opens up a view across the water to the towers of Cologne Cathedral.