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The Phoenix Lake in Dortmund, as we know it today: It is built up all around. The satellite image is from 2021. © TIM-online/Geobasis NRW
The Phoenix Lake, once the site of a steelworks, is now a landmark of Dortmund. Spectacular aerial photographs show its impressive transformation.
Dortmund – The Phoenix Lake in Dortmund (NRW) has established itself as a popular tourist destination in North Rhine-Westphalia and is now a symbol of the city, comparable to the Westfalenpark and the Florianturm. It is hard to believe that where there is now a lake of around 24 hectares (roughly the size of 17 football fields), there was once no water. Breathtaking aerial and satellite images document the impressive transformation of the entire site.
Impressive transformation of a NRW lake: aerial photos show it without water
If you want to understand the history of the Phoenix Lake in Dortmund-Hörde, you have to look back to the era of coal and steel. The name of the lake in the south of the city in the Ruhr area is a direct legacy of this industrial past.
In the 19th century, the Hermannshütte steel and iron works were built on the site where pedal boats and ducks alike now make their rounds. Later, the entire area became known as Phoenix East. Over time, the Ruhr region and North Rhine-Westphalia changed, and coal and steel became relics of a bygone era. After the plant closed in April 2001, parts of the plant were shipped to China and put back into operation there. Three years earlier, in 1998, the lights had already gone out at the neighboring blast furnace site Phoenix West – now home to the Bergmann Brewery, Phoenix des Lumières, the techno club Tresor.West and numerous start-ups and companies. Then the radical change began.
In 2009, the Phoenix Lake in Dortmund was not yet recognizable as such. Above all, the predominant element of water was completely missing. © TIM-online/Geobasis NRW
Work to transform the site into a lake began in 2006. Around 2.5 million cubic metres of earth had to be excavated. Part of this was dumped on the “Kaiserberg”, from which there is a wonderful view over the Phoenix Lake and the whole of Dortmund.
The impressive transformation of the Phoenix Lake in Dortmund
“After just five years of construction, on October 1, 2010, the biggest and most eagerly awaited milestone of the project was celebrated: the start of filling the lake,” said the city of Dortmund. Just six months later, in May 2011, the filling of the lake was completed. “All construction fences were removed and the Phoenix Lake recreation area was made permanently accessible to the public.” Phoenix Lake, an oasis in the middle of Dortmund, was completed.
The Möhnesee is currently the largest lake in North Rhine-Westphalia. However, RWE is planning to flood the open-cast mine in Hambach and thus create an even larger lake. It may be several years before the Hambach open-cast mine becomes a gigantic lake in North Rhine-Westphalia. Nevertheless, it should be available to the population much sooner.
