RWE Tower

The Aalto Theatre (Aalto-Theater) is a performing arts venue in Essen, Germany, and is home to the city's opera company Aalto-Musiktheater and the ballet company Aalto Ballett. The Essener Philharmoniker serve as the venue's orchestra. The theatre opened on 25 September 1988 with Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and is mainly used for opera and ballet, but also for concerts and galas.The design by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto was the unanimous winner in a competition in 1959, but the building was begun only in 1983, seven years after Aalto's death. A feature of the auditorium's design is its asymmetrical layout and the indigo blue colour of the seats. Conductor Wolf-Dieter Hauschild held the positions of both Intendant and Generalmusikdirektor in personal union from 1992 until 1997, followed by Stefan Soltesz from 1997 until 2013. Soltesz led the Essener Philharmoniker to the title Orchestra of the Year in 2003 and 2008 and the Aalto-Musiktheater to that of Opera House of the Year in 2008, following a survey of 50 critics by magazine Opernwelt. He was succeeded as Intendant by Hein Mulders and as Generalmusikdirektor by Tomáš Netopil.

The FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management is Germany's largest private university. The business school is privately run, works in close co-operation with other universities, and is state recognized. With more than 42,000 students the FOM is the largest private university in Germany. Also it has the biggest economic and business sciences faculty in Germany.The majority of students are working professionals. The range of courses offered centers on business, business administration, economic psychology and engineering. The FOM, founded in 1993, has traditionally close relationships with many major German companies.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Essen, Germany.

Essen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛsn̩] (listen); Latin: Assindia) is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of 582,415 makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as the ninth-largest city of Germany. Essen lies in the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region and is part of the cultural area Rhineland. Because of its central location in the Ruhr, Essen is often regarded as the Ruhr's "secret capital". Two rivers flow through the city: in the north, the Emscher, the Ruhr area's central river, and in the south, the Ruhr River, which is dammed in Essen to form the Lake Baldeney (Baldeneysee) and Lake Kettwig (Kettwiger See) reservoirs. The central and northern boroughs of Essen historically belong to the Low German (Westphalian) language area, and the south of the city to the Low Franconian (Bergish) area (closely related to Dutch). Essen is seat to several of the region's authorities, as well as to eight of the 100 largest publicly held German corporations by revenue, including three DAX-listed corporations. Essen is often considered the energy capital of Germany with E.ON and RWE, Germany's largest energy providers, both headquartered in the city. Essen is also known for its impact on the arts through the respected Folkwang University of the Arts, its Zollverein School of Management and Design, and the Red Dot industrial product design award. In early 2003, the universities of Essen and the nearby city of Duisburg (both established in 1972) were merged into the University of Duisburg-Essen with campuses in both cities and a university hospital in Essen. In 1958, Essen was chosen to serve as the seat to a Roman Catholic diocese (often referred to as Ruhrbistum or diocese of the Ruhr). Founded around 845, Essen remained a small town within the sphere of influence of an important ecclesiastical principality (Essen Abbey) until the onset of industrialization. The city then—especially through the Krupp family iron works—became one of Germany's most important coal and steel centers. Essen, until the 1970s, attracted workers from all over the country; it was the fifth-largest city in Germany between 1929 and 1988, peaking at over 730,000 inhabitants in 1962. Following the region-wide decline of heavy industries in the last decades of the 20th century, the city has seen the development of a strong tertiary sector of the economy. The most notable witness of this Strukturwandel (structural change) is the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, which has once been the largest of its kind in Europe. Ultimately closed in 1993, both the coking plant and the mine have been inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2001. Notable accomplishments of the city in recent years include the title of European Capital of Culture on behalf of the whole Ruhr area in 2010 and the selection as the European Green Capital for 2017.

Essen Hauptbahnhof (German for "Essen main station") is a railway station in the city of Essen in western Germany. It is situated south of the old town centre, next to the A 40 motorway. It was opened in 1862 by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn. However, the station was not the first in Essen: as the station called Essen (today Essen-Altenessen) on the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn was opened in 1847. The station suffered extensive damage in World War II and was almost completely rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s. During the following years, the Essen Stadtbahn and the A 40 were other construction projects affecting the station. Today it is an important hub for local, regional and long-distance services, with all major InterCityExpress and InterCity trains calling at the station as well as RegionalExpress and Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn services. Trains of all kinds call at the station, from long distance to local services. It used to be one of the Metropolitan stops on the Hamburg to Cologne line before the service was discontinued in 2002. There are night services by EuroNight trains to cities such as Moscow and Brussels, and DB NachtZug trains to Zurich and Vienna, among others. Some 400 trains pass through the station each day, making Essen Hauptbahnhof the third busiest railway station in the Ruhr Area after Dortmund Hauptbahnhof and Duisburg Hauptbahnhof.

Saalbau Essen is a concert venue in Essen, Germany, the home of the Essen Philharmonic. The original building was completed in 1902, and destroyed during World War II on 26 July 1943. It was rebuilt between 1949 and 1954 and completely renovated in 2003 and 2004. The Saalbau Essen is located a little bit south of the city center close to the Aalto Theatre. Since the 2013/2014 season Tomáš Netopil has been the music director of Essener Philharmonic. Also since 2013/2014 Hein Mulders has been the intendant of the Saalbau Essen.

The Simon Hirschland Bank was founded in 1841 in Essen, Germany, by Simon Hirschland (1807-1885), who started his business as a merchant, and over the years began to lend money. The banking business began in 1841; Simon Hirschland also traded in wool, meat, pelts, nails, copper, lead and cattle, from 1 Weber Street. Simon Hirschland's son, Issac Hirschland (1845-1912), took over operation of the bank on his father’s death, and his sons, Dr. Georg Hirschland (1885-1942) and Kurt Hirschland (1882-1957) became the bank’s principles after Issac. The bank grew into an international investment bank, with concerns as far away as South America and the United States.In 1938, the Simon Hirschland bank was forcibly sold ("Aryanized") and the family members who were involved in the bank fled to and settled in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Though the family members who arrived in the United States arrived with only their suitcases, the family has flourished, with many bankers, doctors, lawyers, and professionals in many fields.The bank building still exists as a department store on Lindenalle, near the renamed Hirschlandplatz, in Essen. One of the artworks looted from Kurt Hirschland by the Nazis, a drawing by Vincent Van Gogh called La Mousmé (July-August 1888) was restituted to the family by Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in 1956.

Philharmonie (Philharmonic Hall) is an underground station of the Essen Stadtbahn in the Südviertel district, Essen near the Saalbau Essen, which is referenced by the name of the station. Today, Stadtbahn line U11 as well as tram lines 107 and 108 and night services NE8 and NE13 call the station. It is the oldest Stadtbahn station in Essen.

The Bank im Bistum Essen eG (BIB) is a cooperative bank which was founded in 1966. The bank is located in Essen and is focused on a specifically defined clientele. These include the Catholic Church and its institutions. Its members are business clients like hospitals, foundations, church-related housing construction, homes for disabled people, retirement homes and other institutions of provision – as well as a number of private customers: staff members of the institutions mentioned above. By now people who do not work for the church can also become customers as well as atheists or people of other religions. Due to the bank's ethic sustainability orientation, numerous customers from the charitable-foundations-field have joined the bank in recent years. Companies that are solely profit oriented are, according to the bank, not part of the bank's customer base.The BIB is as well as the Bank für Kirche und Caritas eG in Paderborn, the DKM Darlehnskasse Münster and the Pax-Bank in Cologne one of the four catholic church banks in North Rhine-Westphalia. Measured by the bank's total assets in 2016 the Bank im Bistum Essen makes place 21 on the list of the largest cooperative banks in Germany.The bank offers the whole range of services of a universal bank.

Grillo-Theater is a theatre in Essen, Germany. Named after the industrialist Friedrich Grillo, who made the building possible, it opened on 16 September 1892 with Lessing's drama Minna von Barnhelm. The building was badly damaged in World War II; it was restored with a much simpler façade and re-opened in 1950 with Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Notable directors included Erwin Piscator, Jean-Louis Barrault, Heinz Dietrich Kenter, Hansgünther Heyme. Caspar Neher became head of design in 1927 and designed here eight operas and 11 plays. In 1988, the role of the Grillo-Theater as Essen's major stage venue was taken by the newly constructed Aalto Theatre which also opened with Die Meistersinger. Following a major reconstruction by the architect Werner Ruhnau and a reduction of the auditorium from 670 to 400 seats, the Grillo-Theater became a flexible smaller venue; it re-opened in September 1990 with Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

National-Bank AG (own spelling: NATIONAL-BANK) is one of the medium-sized regional banks in Germany. With around 600 employees, it provides services for approximately 100,000 retail clients, freelancers, corporate clients and institutional investors with a focus on medium-sized companies.

The Essen Cathedral Treasury (German: Essener Domschatz) is one of the most significant collections of religious artworks in Germany. A great number of items of treasure are accessible to the public in the treasury chamber of Essen Minster. The cathedral chapter manages the treasury chamber, not as a museum as in some places, but as the place in which liturgical implements and objects are kept, which continued to be used to this day in the service of God, so far as their conservation requirements allow.