Dortmund is often reduced to beer, coal and football, and this guide shows how those stories live on in its buildings, alongside art and faith that go back to the Middle Ages. It covers five places: the Dortmunder U, the Museum of Art and Cultural History, the Propsteikirche, the Stadtgarten and, a short ride north, Borsigplatz, where Borussia Dortmund was born.
Dortmunder U
Near the main station, the tall brick tower with a golden U on its roof is the city's best-known landmark of the brewing age. It was built in 1926–1927 to designs by Emil Moog, a Dortmund engineer who specialised in breweries, as the fermenting and storage cellar of the Dortmunder Union brewery; inside, beer fermented in open tiled tanks. The tower is about 70 metres high. The U on top, about 9 metres tall, gilded and lit from inside, was added in 1968 as the brewery's logo and was designed by Ernst Neufert.
After brewing stopped, the city bought the site in 2007 and had it converted by Gerber Architekten into a centre for art and creativity. It partly opened on 28 May 2010, the year the Ruhr was European Capital of Culture, and the Museum Ostwall, the city's museum of modern and contemporary art, reopened inside it that October. Since 2010 the roof crown has shown the Flying Pictures by the film director Adolf Winkelmann, moving images made of about 1.7 million LEDs.
- The Flying Pictures on the crown of the tower, best seen after dark from the square in front or from the station side.
- The golden U itself, the last sign of the Union brewery that once filled this site.
Museum of Art and Cultural History (MKK)
A short walk away, on Hansastraße, the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte occupies a building that is a sight in itself: the former municipal savings bank, built in 1924 to designs by Hugo Steinbach in Art Deco style. The museum goes back to 1883, when the city decided to collect historical and artistic objects, and it moved into the old bank in November 1983. Its collections run from prehistory to the 20th century, with paintings, sculpture, furniture and the history of Dortmund itself; the 19th-century paintings include works by Caspar David Friedrich, Max Slevogt and Lovis Corinth.
- The Art Deco architecture of the former savings bank, from the façade on Hansastraße to the interiors.
- A terrestrial globe by Gerardus Mercator from 1541, and an 18th-century pharmacy from Ahlen with its original fittings.
Propsteikirche (St. Johannes Baptist)
Just off the Westenhellweg shopping street, the Propsteikirche was built as the church of a Dominican friary. The friars had tried to settle in Dortmund from 1309 but were repeatedly driven out, and only succeeded in 1330. The choir was built from 1331 and the church was consecrated in 1458. After the Reformation the city's churches became Protestant, and in 1819 this one became Dortmund's first Catholic parish church since then; it is still the only Catholic church inside the ring road that follows the old city wall. Bombing in 1943 left only its outer walls standing, and it was rebuilt between 1947 and 1964.
Its greatest treasure survived because it had been moved away in time: the high altar painted by Derick Baegert of Wesel in the 1470s, almost 8 metres wide when open. Its left wing shows the Holy Kindred with the oldest known view of Dortmund in the background, and the central Crucifixion includes what is believed to be a self-portrait of the painter, one of the oldest in north-western Europe.
- The view of medieval Dortmund on the left wing of the Baegert altar: look for the city's towers behind the figures.
- The painter's self-portrait in the crowd of the Crucifixion scene on the central panel.
Stadtgarten
South of the old town ring, the Stadtgarten is the green space next to the city administration buildings, with a Stadtbahn station beneath it named after the park. It is not a historic garden to tour but a place to pause: office workers eat their lunch here, and it is the last stop of the scavenger hunt route. If you have walked from the Dortmunder U through the old centre, it is the natural place to sit down and end the walk.
Borsigplatz
Borsigplatz lies in the Nordstadt, the working-class district north of the railway, close to the main gate of the former Westfalenhütte steelworks of Hoesch. It is named after Albert Borsig, a Berlin industrialist who co-founded a machine factory in Dortmund in 1872. The square is a circle with six streets leading off it like the points of a star, and a tram line crosses its green centre. On 19 December 1909, young men from the local Catholic parish of the Holy Trinity, whose chaplain disapproved of their football, founded Borussia Dortmund in the Wildschütz restaurant near the square.
Ever since, Borsigplatz has been where the club's titles are celebrated: after major wins, the team and tens of thousands of fans gather here, often with a car parade. Fans like to say they will paint Borsigplatz black and yellow, a saying that goes back to the European Cup Winners' Cup win of 1966. The square is a listed monument. It is not on the scavenger hunt route, but football fans should make the trip.
- The star-shaped layout of the square and the BVB colours you will see on shop fronts, walls and flags in the surrounding streets.
How to see them in one walk
Start at the Dortmunder U next to the main station, then walk east along the edge of the old town to the MKK on Hansastraße. From there it is a short walk to the Propsteikirche off the Westenhellweg, then continue south through the old centre to the Stadtgarten. For Borsigplatz, go back towards the main station and take the Stadtbahn north into the Nordstadt; it makes a good separate trip, especially on a match day.
See Dortmund with World City Trail
Our Dortmund scavenger hunt turns the city centre into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the Dortmunder U to the Stadtgarten, and four of the places in this guide are among them: the Dortmunder U, the Museum of Art and Cultural History, the Propsteikirche and the Stadtgarten.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Dortmund.
Play the Dortmund scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Dortmund →
Play the outdoor escape game in Dortmund →
Facts checked in October 2026.