On the left bank of the Rhine, not far from Düsseldorf, Krefeld is a conurbation of towns incorporated into a city at the start of the 20th century. At that time Krefeld was a booming textiles town with a forte for silk and velvet weaving.
Even now, Krefeld is called the “Samt- und Seidenstadt,” velvet and silk city, and there are still a few places recording this heritage. One is the German Textiles Museum, which draws on one of the world’s richest collections of fabrics. The affluence generated by textile manufacturing is also unmistakeable in some of the properties in the city: The most remarkable are Haus Lange and Haus Esters, designed by Bauhaus member Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and now a department of the city’s art museum.