History and meaning
This panorama represents the northern end of the east side of the street Königsallee in Düsseldorf. The former Kastanienallee was renamed Königsallee in the mid 19th century after a controversial visit of the Prussian king. It is considered one of the most important luxury shopping streets in Germany and runs as a broad boulevard in a north-south direction through the center of the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is often abbreviated as Kö and is also the widest street in Germany. It owes this to the moat (or Kö-Graben) that runs through its center and is lined on both sides by a historic tree population. Only the northern area shown here is designed as a square, without a moat.
Luxury Street
Especially on the eastern side shown here, the Kö is a luxury shopping street with numerous luxury stores and luxury brand chains and thus occupies second place in Europe in terms of branch density in the luxury segment after New Bond Street in London. On the opposite side, hotels and banks dominate, which is why this is called the “quiet side” or bank side. In this panorama, we see amongst others branches of Rüschenbeck (inside the Libeskind-Bau), Max Mara, Bogner, Breguet, Harry Winston, Tod’s, Wempe, Miu Miu und Tiffany & Co.
Architecture
Auffällig ist am linken Bildrand der 2013 neu entstandene Kö-Bogen von Daniel Libeskind als expressiver Abschluss der Königsallee und direkt am Hofgarten mit dem Teich an der Landskrone gelegen (linker Bildrand). Rechts davon findet sich ein Bankgebäude, welches 1924-25 für die Darmstädter und Nationalbank vom Architekturbüro „Carl Moritz und Albert Betten“ erbaut wurde und dessen Dach von zwei Statuen begrenzt wird. Im nächsten Block finden sich ein Büro- und Geschäftshaus nach Plänen des Architekten Fritz Niebel (Nr. 10) und das Hohenzollernhaus (Nr. 14-16) an der Ecke zur Theodor-Körner-Straße. Letzteres wurde vom Architekten Hermann vom Endt für den Zigarrenimporteur Robert Samuel entworfen. Dieser war Hoflieferant des württembergischen Königshauses der Hohenzollern. Heute ist es u.a. Sitz der Hedwig und Robert Samuel-Stiftung.
Corneliusplatz
In this area of the Königsallee, instead of the moat, there is the Corneliusplatz, which is laid out as a green area with the so-called Schalenbrunnen fountain. In winter, an ice skating rink is built here. The square is named after Peter von Cornelius, the first director of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, whose monument is located in the Hofgarten.
Another streetline view of the Königsallee representing a street front of the bank side can be found in our archive. Additionally you can find a preview of an unfinnished street front of Königsallee amongst the preview images on the right.
