The world’s biggest Titanic visitor attraction opens in the ship’s Belfast birthplace this month, 100 years to the day since the doomed liner was completed in the same yards.

This is our Eiffel Tower, this is our Guggenheim

After decades of quietly forgetting “the most famous ship since Noah’s Ark”, Belfast has reclaimed the Titanic, and is championing a legend which continues to captivate the imagination a century on.

The attraction, which has risen from the derelict Harland and Wolff shipyards, tells the story of the liner from its inception in Belfast’s industrial boom years through to its launch, sinking and the aftermath.

The six-level, aluminium-clad building is in the form of four Titanic-sized prows that can be seen shimmering from any one viewpoint, representing Titanic and its two sister ships, Olympic and Britannic.

Northern Ireland, the British province torn apart by sectarian strife for three decades until the late 1990s, hopes the eye-catching centre will kick-start its tourism economy and attract visitors from Asia.

“This is all about a new era: This is our Eiffel Tower, this is our Guggenheim, and it’s our time to completely change how people across the world see our city,” said Claire Bradshaw, Titanic Belfast’s marketing chief.

Inside, workmen are putting the finishing touches to its nine interactive galleries ahead of the March 31 launch.

The biggest, most ambitious ship of the age hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic from Southampton to New York, sinking on April 15, 1912. Of 2,224 people aboard, 1,514 perished.

Titanic Belfast expects 425,000 visitors in the first year and 80,000 tickets, priced £13.50 (€16.25), have been sold in advance.