Hafencity
One thing I saw in Hamburg that I thought was pretty cool was their massive HafenCity redevelopment project aimed at turning a really large obsolete waterfront district into a mixed-use urban center.
It’s hard to know for sure because a lot of it’s not done yet and obviously the global recession is going to slow things down, but it looks to be really well-executed with a good combination of uses, the creation of new infrastructure including a new metro line, etc.
The story behind the growth is interesting, too. Hamburg has been a port city for a long time, but for a while had come to be a somewhat peripheral player in European shipping, especially since Bremerhaven is the main German car export port. But with the collapse of Communism, Hamburg is suddenly centrally located in the new European map and is the main shipping hub for goods bound for the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, the Baltic area and to some extent beyond. Hamburg is also better-situated for shifting goods from ship to rail as opposed to from ship to truck, so it benefits from some growing concern about carbon emissions.
Consequently, the port had been having a real boom decade until the crisis and the ensuing collapse of trade hit. And doing such a large central city redevelopment will reduce the extent to which that just makes the city sprawl outward.
16 Responses to “Hafencity”
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September 26th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Those lamp posts are pretty bad – they look like large insects.
September 26th, 2009 at 9:19 am
It seems the Germans still have their appalling style of modern architecture. It’s that kind of “let’s do a combo of Soviet and Bronx Ghetto, and paint it bright colors and hope nobody notices” look. I like the Germans, but there’s something wrong with them. They need some mojo. At least the Danish are fun.
September 26th, 2009 at 9:32 am
But then again, when my mechanic is named Heinrich, I feel safe. There are times when boring is really good. When it comes to reliability of cars, boring is exactly what you want. You really don’t want fun new surprises. You want Heinrich to make sure it runs well.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Strangely enough, the best mechanic in Boulder was a blind guy who never drove a car in his life. He could hear and smell your engine and know exactly what was wrong. And fix it really well. And he could tell you what make, model and year your car was no matter how bad it was running. He was pretty good at guessing colors, too. And he obviously couldn’t see it. He runs a coffee shop now. The Unseen Bean.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I don’t agree. I think those buildings are quite beautiful.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Those lamp posts are pretty bad – they look like large insects.
I see you’ve never been to Hamburg — those are actually large insects. It’s a real problem, but thank god they’re not carnivorous.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I love Hamburg or ‘Ha Ha’ as the natives call it (HH short for Hansestadt Hamburg in the German pronunciation. I highly recommend the Speicherstadt, the old warehouse district, if you haven’t already visited.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:42 am
How’s the concert house coming along? The design looked very cool (on top of an old loading dock/warehouse – big sail-looking thing.) It’s at the end of that peninsula. I heard they were slowing down because of $$ problems.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:01 am
That plan reminds me very strongly of downtown Vancouver, where the construction of new buildings and the new light rail system for the Olympics has modernized the city center without taking away from any of the stuff that originally made it cool, like the running/walking/biking path along the Fraser River, the ferries that take you across the river, and the phalanxes of houseboats. Both the geography and the style of buildings of Hamburg look very similar to Vancouver’s.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:16 am
My first thought: won’t the whole thing be flooded when sea level rises two feet?
Some planning in advance of known disasters, folks.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:46 am
“And doing such a large central city redevelopment will reduce the extent to which that just makes the city sprawl outward.”
But then again such ugly architecture might make the suburbs look even better.
September 26th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
But with the collapse of Communism, Hamburg is suddenly centrally located in the new European map and is the main shipping hub for goods bound for the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, the Baltic area and to some extent beyond.
Why Poland? They have their own seaports.
September 26th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I was in Hamburg this summer, and i was a bit concerned about floods, they later explained me how every works and you wouldn’t believe how well they are prepared for floods. Ferry’s docks and any kind of platforms by the water are floating, they go up if water goes up. And they have huge automatic floodgates to keep water away from waterfront streets(which are most of the times well above the water level) for up to 10-15 meters water rise.
The channels in the city are isolated from the main river with dams, etc…
Just a few buildings get flooded (like fishmarkt) a few times a year.
Hamburg has been there for a thousand years, and they’re germans: they don’t do anything wrong neither lack a little bit of anticipation.
I wish I could say the same for a country with regular floods in the coast like mine, Spain.
September 26th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Why Poland? They have their own seaports.
Look at the map — Poland’s seaports are on the Baltic, so ships have to go up and around Denmark, whereas Hamburg is on the North Sea. It saves significant travel time.
September 26th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I must admit, my beloved Germans seem to put durability first and aesthetics second when they go about building their buildings. It is almost as if their architects have been ordered to design all structures to withstand a possible second and more prolonged wave of Allied bombing.
For a German architect, planning to avoid high-explosive induced collapse into rubble is paramount.
September 27th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Glad to see they omitted all the cheesy frills like trees.