Düsseldorf

Germany’s capital of contemporary and 20th-century art, this riverside city offers art and architecture lovers everything from Art Nouveau to Frank Gehry and from Paul Klee to today’s cutting edge artists. Trend-setters head for the avante garde "stilwerk" department store and fans of Frank Gehry head for the spectacular MediaHarbor, where Gehry, Vasconi and Chipperfield transformed a grim storage depot area into a brilliant landscape of contemporary urban architecture. The K20/K21 is Germany’s premier museum of 20th-century art – which is saying a lot considering the collections in Munich and elsewhere. Paul Klee taught at the ...

Germany’s capital of contemporary and 20th-century art, this riverside city offers art and architecture lovers everything from Art Nouveau to Frank Gehry and from Paul Klee to today’s cutting edge artists. Trend-setters head for the avante garde "stilwerk" department store and fans of Frank Gehry head for the spectacular MediaHarbor, where Gehry, Vasconi and Chipperfield transformed a grim storage depot area into a brilliant landscape of contemporary urban architecture. The K20/K21 is Germany’s premier museum of 20th-century art – which is saying a lot considering the collections in Munich and elsewhere. Paul Klee taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, and the museum has 90 of his paintings, in addition to those of Picasso, Kandinsky and others. The German Opera on the Rhine, a concert hall and more than 100 art galleries add to all this cultural largess. As if all this weren’t enough, there’s the German Ceramics Museum, the only one in the world that covers this art’s entire history throughout the world. Its highlight is an entire ceramic cupola from the 1600s. Locals and tourists mingle on the riverside promenade to stroll, sit in cafes, picnic, ride bicycles, watch the sunset or board Rhine River cruises.

About the Expert

Stillman Rogers has written more than two dozen guidebooks, including Adventure Guide to Canada's Atlantic Provinces, Guide to Eastern Canada, and Adventure Guide to the Chesapeake.