Explorations of a modern but unique Northern German city.
Hamburg, Germany’s 2nd largest city, is located near the North Sea on a natural harbor. It is a modern city with only about 20% of its pre-WWII buildings remaining. But Hamburg still has a UNESCO World Heritage Site and many, many museums.
I used Hamburg as a base to do exploring around the region, visiting Lübeck, Lüneberg, and Schwerin. My explorations of Hamburg ended up being mostly a couple of hours after visiting the above and a day in a cemetery (next post). I only saw a small fraction of what you can find in Hamburg.
Jana Irving After visiting Lübeck, I started my explorations at the Binnenalster, an artificial lake in the center of Hamburg.
Jana Irving Three sides of the lake is surrounded by buildings, with the last side leading to an even bigger lake.
Jana Irving Hamburg also has a bunch of canals.
Jana Irving Alsterarkaden (Alster Arcade), a colonnaded shopping area.
Jana Irving Hamburg’s gorgeous 19th century Rathaus (City Hall).
Jana Irving The current Rathaus was built after the Great Fire of 1842 destroyed much of the Old Town. The Rathaus wasn’t directly destroyed by the fire. The building was blown up to create a fire break. This plan was not successful.
Jana Irving Somehow the current Rathaus survived WWII with little damage except to its tower.
Jana Irving The Rathaus joins with the Chamber of Commerce behind it create a lovely courtyard.
Jana Irving Such a gorgeous building.
Jana Irving Thankfully some other buildings survived WWII as well.
Jana Irving This imposing building houses the Zentralbibliothek (Central Library). It used to be the main post office and is conveniently located right along the train tracks to the main train station.
Hamburg is notable for its early modernist architecture. Two districts, the Speicherstadt and the Kontorhaus districts have been named UNESCO World Heritage status. The Kontorhaus district was built in the Brick Expressionism style popular in early 20th century Germany. The facades of buildings were brick but brick was also used to make designs. The Kontorhaus district consists of office buildings about 10-stories tall that were built on a old tenement housing area. I’m not usually one for modern architecture but at least these buildings are really interesting.
Jana Irving The inner courtyard of Sprinkenhof, built between 1927-1943.
Jana Irving Chilehaus is the most famous of the buildings in the Kontorhaus district.
Jana Irving The weird shape of the block greatly influenced the shape and design of the building.
Jana Irving It has some very interesting decorative elements.
Jana Irving Just east of the Kontorhaus district is the newest addition to the area, HafenCity, a project to rehabilitate an old port area no longer used due to cargo ships.
Jana Irving From the left is the old Klingberg Police Station, built from 1906-1908 which is incorporated into the Chilehaus (middle), followed by buildings I couldn’t find the name of.
Now for Speicherstadt. You have probably have never heard the name, but if you have seen a picture of Hamburg, it was probably of the Speicherstadt. It’s an old free trade area consisting of tall warehouses from the late 1800s onward. Today, it still hosts warehouses, plus a bunch of other businesses and apartments as well. It’s the largest warehouse district in the world were the buildings rest on timber-pile foundations. Due to the waterlogged soil this area needed piling to prevent the sinking of the buildings.
Jana Irving Honestly, this has got to be the nicest looking warehouse district ever.
Jana Irving The doors on every floor of this building helped getting goods up to the top floors.
Jana Irving Wasserschloss (Water Castle), a castle-like building constructed to house the men that maintained the winches used to hoist goods up to the warehouses’ higher floors.
Jana Irving It’s a very neat area. Although its really dead on Sunday afternoons.
Jana Irving The Speicherstadt district is separated from the rest of Hamburg by a series of canals.
Jana Irving Moving on to Hauptkirche St. Michaelis (St. Michael’s Church), a gorgeous 18th century Baroque church.
Jana Irving Surprisingly fancy for a Lutheran church.
Jana Irving St. Michael’s has had to rebuilt a couple times, once after a fire destroyed the building in 1906 and after damage inflicted during WWII.
Jana Irving Since it was such a lovely day, I decided to stroll along the promenade along the river. That red boat is a lightship, basically a floating lighthouse.
Jana Irving The Cap San Diego, now a museum ship.
Jana Irving An older looking brick tower , a elevated train and some modern buildings. The brick tower, Zombeck-Turm Am Baumwall, that is actually a high-rise bunker constructed in the 1940. It purposely blends in as a normal old tower, but it’s a concrete building with a brick facade and a special roof to repel bombs. 9 of these towers still exist in the Hamburg area.
Jana Irving A nice promenade.
Jana Irving I’m not sure what the building on the right used to be but it does connect to piers for ships to dock at. On Google Maps it looks like tourist boats launch from the area.
Jana Irving It’s probably an old passenger terminal.
Jana Irving Not all of the buildings of the Speicherstadt could be saved. Now modern buildings replace what was lost during WWII.
Jana Irving The ruins of St. Nicholas (St. Nikolai), a Gothic church destroyed in WWII. The tower, however, is still open to go up.
Jana Irving Ending at the Domplatz. There is no longer a cathedral here but at least some of the buildings are neat.
Hamburg was a modern city even before WWII. Luckily, some of the pre-war buildings still survive. Several can be found in the city center. The city center and its outskirts are full of museums as well. I had planned to visit one, but I never ended up doing that. That happens a lot. I got distracted by what I saw in my next post, Ohlsdorf Cemetery, the largest rural cemetery in the world.
Check out my next update where I get lost in a wonderful rural cemetery!
or
Start at the beginning of this European adventure!
Share this:
Discover more from Wandering Jana
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
