Once the busiest maritime port in Europe (still the 2nd largest), the harbor of Hamburg was starting to slip in an emerging era of globalization with EU free trade, massive modern container ships and increased border security. The bountiful southern banks across the Elbe River would emerge as successor to the city’s evolving ship activity, leaving the impractical historic harbor abandoned by disuse and deterioration. In the mid-1990s, Hamburg’s municipal government determined that the city’s downtown core was in a major need of help - looking for a revigorating urban strategy to combat a continuingly declining inner-city population of just 14,000 residents (peaking around 170,000 in the 1890s) and the adjacent dockland’s depreciation became an opportunistic realization. Located less than a mile away from the city center, the 388-acre industrial harbor was obtained by the city-state of Hamburg in 1997. Following an urban master-planning competition, both KCAP (Dutch firm) and ASTOC (German firm) would be selected to collaborate on the future of this prime inner-city location.
19th century Hamburg port area (future site of HafenCity)
Master Plan of HafenCity
Model of HafenCity
The subsequent development concept, christened ‘HafenCity’ (or Port City), would divide the site into ten districts, each with specifically assigned qualities and limitations. The plan (approved in 2000) allowed for a variety of building types and neighborhoods with the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen circumstances - an innovative approach that allows development officials to facilitate a cooperative of invested future property owners / tenants who procure the design and construction of their own building, attracting local and international architecture firms that leads to a diverse, higher-quality form of living and working conditions. Furthermore, mandated site sustainability requirements ensure quality performance on a site that is known to flood two or three times a year. To provide resiliency from the elements, pedestrian promenade levels are set 15 feet above water level, while street levels are set even further up to 25 feet - effectively separating major vehicular and pedestrian traffic throughout the development.
Current View of HafenCity construction
Currently underway, the evolving $10 billion urban redevelopment effort has been projected to take 25-30 years in implementing all the sub-districts - proceeding from west to east - with a total of 19.5 million square feet of new construction, currently labeled “the largest urban construction initiative ongoing in Europe” and effectively increases the size of Hamburg’s city center by 40 percent. To the north of HafenCity lies the historic 19th century warehouse complex of Speicherstadt, a series of renovated clinker brick-built buildings, allowing an easy transition between the old and the new city. Directly south of Speicherstadt is the neighborhood of Am Sandtorkai / Dalmannkai - the first completed HafenCity district in 2009 - consisting of multi-use developments, a Ship Harbor and a waterfront promenade below cantilevered buildings. On the western tip of the historic pier - rising from the massive red brick framework of a former cocoa-bean warehouse known as Kaispeicher - emerges the identifiable singular structure of the new Elbe Philharmonic Hall (The Elbphilharmonie). The new construction follows the guidelines of HafenCity’s master plan in creating ‘urban magnets’ - strategically located on the outer-perimeter of the entire development, instead of toward the center, in able to shape the discretely independent quarters with specific civic / cultural functions. As the future home to the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the emblematic Elbe Philharmonie vies to become the centerpiece of the new HafenCity neighborhood and give the city of Hamburg a second concert hall - following the opening of the Laeiszhalle in 1908 - with a contemporary design prescience meant to attract international consideration and highlight Hamburg’s recent expansion plans.
Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle : Two venues in the city center under one management
Sandtorhafen (historic harbor) in HafenCity
The Elbphilharmonie : Construction on the western tip of the Hafen-City
Fueled by their recent work in urban regeneration, including the transformation of London’s delinquent Bankside Power Station into the Tate Modern, Swiss architects Herzog and DeMeuron were selected to assemble Hamburg’s new cultural facility that would include (in the spirit of the multi-use development) three concert halls, a hotel and luxury apartments. The selected base of the new design - the historic keel-shaped Kaispecher warehouse - would provide the designers with distinct advantages that would afford the project with robust structural performance and an exterior brickwork fenestration that echos the vocabulary of the historical harbor’s streetscapes. Moreover, the design of the monolithic Kaispecher - built in 1963 by Werner Kallmorgen - is considered to have survived the ‘test of time’ with a playfully modern, yet unbiased abstraction of apertures patterning throughout the entire facade - an ideal plinth for a looming contemporary institution. The new addition - realized as an undulating and multifaceted glass-bodied design - extrudes an identical footprint of the warehouse below and ascents to a maximum height of 328 feet to become Hamburg’s tallest structure in the city center. Ground entry is gained from the east, up an elongated escalator diagonally across the entire warehouse to the former roof of the Kaispecher - now an elevated public square sandwiched between the ‘new’ and ‘old’ elements, offering panoramic views of the surrounding city at 120 feet and entry to the project’s many ancillary areas. Above, the new addition is clad in both curved and textured glass panels (each responding differently to the three main building components), yielding an iridescent visual appeal with the capacity for natural ventilation.The overall composition from the ground mimics a wave-like gem that captures and distorts the animated reflections from both the sky and the water - taking advantage of the projects’ siting from the tip of the old harbor and translating it into an ever-changing appearance. At the core of the ‘crystal’ addition lies an acoustically-reliable concert hall for 2,150 people, hung 160 feet above the river between both the hotel and apartment program blocks. The interiority of the new structure becomes a symbiotic relationship between architecture, logics of acoustics and visual perception - all fundamental ideas that led to an organic tier composition swelling from the boundaries of the concert hall and creating a phenomenological environment throughout the entire project.
Glass construction on east facade
View down Am Kaiserkai (Street)
View from Landungsbrücken Station
Still under development after an expected opening date in 2010, Hamburg’s answer to Sydney’s iconoclastic opera house has gone through a turbulent construction process that has seen more visitors than construction workers on site in recent years. The gigantic glass and steel concert hall was originally presented to the city with a modest budget ($248 million) and accelerated schedule to appease voters, but the expansion of scope to include a hotel, luxury apartments and three concert halls would strain the construction schedule and present unprecedented engineering challenges. Recently, with substantial completion of the exterior shell complete, the contractor of the project would halt work due to structural concerns with the project’s steel saddle roof, leading to more delays and rising costs (currently around $790 million). Now, with a new agreement settled, the completion date has been pushed back to 2016. Hamburg isn’t alone in it’s construction woes, as other project in Germany (the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport at $2.7 billion over budget and Stuttgart’s new high-speed railway station at $2.8 billion over budget) have put these massive ‘civic’ projects at a loss with the German public. Some in Hamburg even wonder if the decision to invest so many resources on HafenCity and its new concert hall will benefit only tourists and the city’s elite.
Elbphilharmonie / Building Section
“It’s what happens whenever you try to build a world wonder that has never been built before, using new materials in new ways ... It’s the same wherever you go — from the pyramids to the Sydney Opera House — it’s very difficult to keep those kind of special projects in tight budgets.”
Elbphilharmonie / Site analysis of access, circulation, new development, and points of social engagement
