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Kontorhausviertel

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Address: Burchardplatz 3

The Kontorhaus district, located between Messberg and Steinstrasse, is one of the most impressive city districts built in Germany in the 1920s. Occasioned by the devastating cholera epidemic of 1892, from 1912 onwards the dilapidated and constricted inner-city areas of historic housing (known as the “Gängeviertel”) were demolished to make way for the first purely commercial office district on the European continent. During World War II this area of Hamburg survived largely unscathed and today consists mainly of buildings from the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s. With its office blocks and clinker brick architecture the district has become one of the city’s major landmarks. The central hub of this urban ensemble designed by Fritz Schumacher is Burchardplatz square, flanked on each side respectively by the Chilehaus, the Messberghof, the Mohlenhof and the Sprinkenhof complexes. These buildings are some of the most outstanding architectural edifices of their time: as works of, in some cases, internationally renowned architects of the 1920s they possess high artistic value.

Das Chilehaus in Hamburg 
Staatsarchiv Hamburg / Sabine Ganczarsky

Chilehaus

link for more information

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Sprinkenhof
Altstädter Strasse 2

Sprinkenhof 2009
Staatsarchiv Hamburg / Nicolai Wieckmann

The largest building within the Kontorhaus district was constructed in three phases between 1927 and 1943. The architects were Fritz Höger and the brothers Hans and Oskar Gerson. Hans Gerson died in 1931 during the second construction phase (1930–1932); the final construction phase was headed by Fritz Höger, who had joined the Nazi Party in 1933. Oskar Gerson was persecuted as a Jew and driven into exile in 1939. The building’s skeleton framework encloses three courtyards and is elaborately ornamented with decorative bonds of clinker brickwork, gilding and glazed terracotta forms designed by Ludwig Kunstmann. The façade opposite the Chilehaus (first construction phase) is covered with lozenges and markedly protruding relief medallions showing Hamburg-based motifs such as seagulls or Hamburg’s coat of arms. With their depiction of cogwheels, sailing ships and so on, the reliefs make reference to trades and businesses with branch offices in the Sprinkenhof building.

Meßberghof 2012
Staatsarchiv Hamburg / Nicolai Wieckmann

Messberghof/Ballinhaus
Messberg 1

Named after the prominent ship owner Albert Ballin, the Ballinhaus was one of the first buildings in the Kontorhaus District, built at the same time as the Chilehaus (1922–1924) and based on plans by the architects Hans and Oskar Gerson. In 1938 it was renamed Messberghof (based on its location) following a directive by the Reich Governor Karl Kaufmann that all streets and buildings called after Jews must be given new names. The unobtrusively decorated ten-storey building stands on the city side of the Customs Canal (demarcating the harbour customs zone) on a direct visual axis with the Speicherstadt; its consciously flat façades are in stark contrast to the Chilehaus. The edifice was originally adorned with sculptures by Ludwig Kunstmann, but these were replaced in 1997 by newly designed bronze sculptures by Lothar Fischer. On the inside the building still contains the original entrance hall with its impressive round stairwell. The floors are made of polished light sandstone plates and the walls are faced with travertine or coloured tiles.

Mohlenhof, Luftbild nach dem 2. Weltkrieg
Staatsarchiv Hamburg

Mohlenhof
Burchardplatz 3

The Mohlenhof was built between 1923 and 1928 based on designs by Rudolf Klophaus, August Schoch and Erich zu Putlitz. The building’s concrete skeleton framework has smooth clinker brick façades with simple incised windows. With its unostentatious, clearly legible architectural forms the office building reflects architectural tastes in the late 1920s, forming a transition from the decorated Expressionism of buildings such as the Chilehaus towards the later modernism of “Neues Bauen”. The main entrance leading onto Burchardplatz is dominated by a larger-than-life sculpture by Richard Kuöhl, also responsible for the sculptural decoration adorning the Chilehaus. The figure represents Mercury who is shouldering a cogwheel and holding in his hand a depiction of Hammonia, a female sculpture personifying Hamburg. Mercury is flanked on either side by reliefs symbolising the five continents.





Chilehaus

Address: Pumpen/Burchardstrasse

With its striking “ship’s prow” capping its eastern tip and its sveltely curving southern side, the Chilehaus is probably one of Hamburg’s most famous buildings and an exceptional example of Brick Expressionism. Fritz Höger designed this mercantile office block between 1922 and 1924 for Henry Brarens Sloman, who had made his fortune above all by trading saltpetre from Chile. Mounted on the tip of the building is an Andean condor, the heraldic emblem of Chile. The ten-storey building is distinguished by the complex clinker brick bonds decorating the façade and sculptural elements made by Richard Kuöhl. 

Blick ins Chilehaus
Staatsarchiv Hamburg / Sabine Ganczarsky

The Chilehaus was one of the first multi-storey buildings to be built in Germany. The original entrance halls, staircases and connecting corridors within the complex have been preserved. Built during the period of hyperinflation at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, this Kontorhaus symbolised the urgent hopes of economic revival after World War I and the international trend during the 1920s of converting inner-city areas where people had formerly lived and worked into purely commercial districts.


 

Speicherstadt

Speicherstadt
Address: Kannengiesserort 7

Constructed between 1883 and 1927, the centrally located warehouse district – the Speicherstadt – in Hamburg harbour extending over a length of 1.1 km was the largest and most modern logistics hub of its time. The construction of the Speicherstadt was a consequence of the 1888 treaty integrating Hamburg into the German Customs Union. As compensation for the loss of its previous privileges a free harbour zone was established. In charge of planning was the city’s senior civil engineer Franz Andreas Meyer. Setting new standards for building methods and facilities, the Speicherstadt is exceptional for its high degree of coherence in architectural and urban planning terms. The quarter was uniformly built with red brick façades, predominantly with Neo-Gothic features of the “Hanover School”. Especially notable is the representative character of the mainly functional buildings, a result of their proximity to Hamburg’s historic centre. This and its sheer volume distinguish the Speicherstadt significantly from warehouse complexes in other harbour cities. Thanks to the scrupulous reconstruction of the district after the devastation of World War II, today the Speicherstadt is the largest intact and coherently designed warehouse ensemble in the world.

Warehouses in general
Address: Kannengiesserort 7

Each block of the Speicherstadt stands on pile foundations made of 12-metre long conifer trunks. The blocks were constructed as skeleton structures to create the largest possible undivided surfaces for greater flexible use. In the course of building, various materials were tested as interior supports: wood, cast iron and reinforced concrete. As a result of the specifications set by Franz Andreas Meyer, the Speicherstadt evolved a coherent character that is nonetheless mixed with architectural diversity due to the participation of a large number of architects; from a distance the quarter is reminiscent of a medieval townscape.


Das "Rathaus" der Speicherstadt am St. Annenfleet
Staatsarchiv Hamburg / Nicolai Wieckmann

The Speicherstadt’s “City Hall”
Address: Bei St. Annen 1

The western edge of Block U in a street called Bei St. Annen is marked by a five-storey building that was built between 1902 and 1904 by the architects Hanssen & Meerwein and served as the administrative headquarters of the HHLA, the Hamburg Logistics and Transportation Company. Its incorporation of Neo-Renaissance but also late-Gothic features, as well as its tall clock tower, set it apart from other buildings in the Speicherstadt. Reminiscent of town hall architecture of that period, the building owes its sobriquet to its function as well as this similarity.

Block E (1885–1888)
Address: Brook 9

The extensively preserved area of the first phase of construction is 600 metres long; it is bounded on its western side by the street Kehrwiedersteg and at its eastern end by the street Kannengiesserort and Neuerwegsbrücke. A particularly impressive element of this complex is Block E, situated between Sandbrücke and the small street Kibbelsteg. The block’s northwestern, diagonally angled corner facing Brooksbrücke is further highlighted by an additional storey with a projecting balcony and a high gable embellished with a heraldic crest. The first and second floors are accentuated with ribbons of green glazed bricks. This section of the building was intended as office space, as is evident from the large windows.


Speicherstadt - historisches Foto
Staatsarchiv Hamburg

Blocks P and Q/R (1891–1896)
Address: Kannengiesserort 7

The second phase of construction comprises no more than Blocks P and Q/R. The warehouses Q/R were built not with the usual steeply pitched roofs but with flat roofs, allowing eight instead of, as elsewhere, six storeys to be incorporated. Block P, situated on the northern perimeter of the Wandrahmfleet canal, was damaged in the war and rebuilt in close adherence to the original structure. The gabled face on the eastern side was designed by Werner Kallmorgen, who used debris from the bombed ruins to integrate post-war modernist forms, while the façade as a whole blends in harmoniously with the adjacent buildings.

Block V (1899–1927)
Address: Brooktorkai 13

The third phase of construction extends from the street Bei St. Annen to the eastern-most point of the Speicherstadt. It consists of the Speicher S to X, as well as the Feuerwache, the Windenwärterhaus and the four former St. Annen customs offices and the former Ericus customs office. Block V is distinguished by its unusual design: the red brick façades are elaborately subdivided by horizontal ribbons of green bricks and Neo-Gothic blind arches in pale sandstone. Its façade elevations are enlivened by diverse window forms. The western-most entrance is highlighted by Art Nouveau-style features. 

Brooksbrücke

Opened in 1888, the steel Bogenbrücke was one of the main points of access into the newly built Speicherstadt, whose sole purpose was the storage of goods. Prior to that Hamburg merchants’ houses had integrated trading offices, living quarters and warehouse under one roof, as is still visible in the historic Deichstrasse, located not far from the bridge and now the last surviving ensemble of town houses from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The original gateway buildings flanking the Brooksbrücke bridge and its sculpted ornaments were destroyed in World War II. The bridge is now embellished with sculptures by Jörg Plickat representing Europe, Hammonia (Hamburg’s patron goddess), St. Ansgar and Barbarossa (2001–2006).