SHOWCASING THE WORLD’S FINEST PROPERTIES AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM

We actually live here
Hamburg: harborer of style
by Michael Hannwacker

Civic architecture seldom comes as spectacular as the Elbphilharmonie concert hall, right on the river Elbe in central Hamburg. Designed by Swiss architect supremos Herzog & de Meuron, and 10 years in the making, the €866 million geometric statement (which includes a hotel and apartments) opened in 2017 to wild applause, shared between the building and Beethoven’s Fifth. (© Thies-Rätzke)

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In 1963, when JFK proclaimed Cold War solidarity in the German capital with the phrase Ich bin ein Berliner, a handful of cynics delightedly noted that ein Berliner was local slang for a jelly doughnut. Just as well he wasn’t speaking in Hamburg. While the ubiquitous beef patty might (in a roundabout way) actually hail from here, it’s not why you’d want to visit this city on the River Elbe. Rather, it’s Hamburg’s striking elegance.

Ask Julia von Jenisch, chair of the trustees of Hamburg’s most important contemporary art venue, to name her favorite museum in the city, and her choice falls on the eponymous Jenisch-Haus. Surrounded by the meticulously kept Jenisch Park above the mighty Elbe, it was built almost 200 years ago by an ancestor of her husband. But she has a point. The “house” really is worth seeing. Reopened after the war as a museum of Hanseatic living culture, it epitomizes the wealthy Hamburgers of the day: distinguished and elegant, with cultivated restraint. This is still very much the style of the city’s upper echelon today.

Young white couple on grand staircase inside Jenisch Haus, Hamburg, Germany

Hamburg’s Museum für Kunst und Kultur since 2008, Jenisch Haus (built 1831-34) is a former country retreat located in Jenisch Park west of the city, housing mainly 19th-century works. (© SHMH/Sinje Hasheider) 

In the park, landscaped in the style of English gardens from around 1800, Julia von Jenisch might well run into Philipp Westermeyer, who lives nearby. A media entrepreneur whose annual Festival of the Digital Universe brings people like Kim Kardashian, Quentin Tarantino and Jeff Koons to Hamburg, he came here 20 years ago and has never thought about leaving since. Why would he?

He remembers a balmy evening last summer when he walked with a friend from New York along the Elbe teeming with container ships, ferries and sailing boats. They passed the Elbphilharmonie, the landmark building by the Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning bureau of Herzog & de Meuron, gleaming in the setting sun, and the Landungsbrücken, the former landing site of Europe’s third biggest port. Finally, they reached the Strandperle, a traditional bar on an artificial beach. Sometimes the city seems almost Mediterranean.

This close to the North Sea though, Mediterranean is probably a stretch. “The weather is absolutely a problem,” opines Julia von Jenisch. But that doesn’t stop Philipp Westermeyer bicycling from A to B whenever possible. He marvels at the city’s compactness – “When I want to see a major soccer game at the weekend, I take my bike to the stadium. Try that in New York.”

The acoustically sculptural interior of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall provides an inspiring setting for ensemble and chamber music, piano recitals, operas and the world’s touring orchestras.  (© Sophie Wolter)

Welcoming a world of trade

A leisurely ride or stroll around the Außenalster lake takes you through the streets and along the canals in posh neighborhoods like Rotherbaum and Harvestehude. Lined with gracious white-stucco mansions, this is where the proverbial “Pfeffersäcke” (literally pepper sacks) of Hamburg used to live: merchants, shipowners and bankers who had become rich partly through the trade in exotic spices. Still prime real estate today, these impressive heritage houses come to the market rarely.

An aerial illustration of German sensibility. In this expensive residential neighborhood of Hamburg, houses and villas (old money) form orderly lines down to the neat leisure facilities of Außenalster Lake. But notice also the exuberance of nature planned into city life, testament to the seldom-heralded romanticism of the German soul. (Alamy)

Hamburg was heavily bombed in World War II. It now gleams with contemporary architecture. Some of the best examples were designed by Hadi Teherani, including the Dancing Towers on the notorious entertaining (and red light) district of the Reeperbahn. The recently opened Deutschlandhaus, with its mesmerizing elliptical central rotunda and the futuristic Dockland, from whose steps evening strollers can wave goodbye to the ships leaving the harbor, also bear Teherani’s signature stamp.

Arriving from Iran with his parents as a six-year-old, Teherani grew up “in a city of distinct neighborhoods that didn’t really mix and where the upper class tended to be a bit elitist. But because of the harbor, most Hamburgers were, and still are, worldly and forward-looking.” So is Teherani, whose style offers a fresh generational take on the brick-built Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District, UNESCO-protected since 2015 as one of the largest coherent historic ensembles of port warehouses in the world.

speicherstadt red brick buildings with bridge over canal, Hamburg Germany

Iranian-born architect Hadi Teherani’s influence offers “a fresh generational take” on the UNESCO-protected brick-built Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus warehouse district. (Shutterstock)

Understated and under the radar

Social elitism is hardly unique to this city. But those born in Hamburg from privileged backgrounds, Teherani observes, “exude a certain coolness and possess a dry humor outsiders might find elusive. They stick together and maintain a classic, understated style.” Julia von Jenisch, originally from a down-to-earth part of Bavaria, finds this reserve amusing. “When they go to their country house on the island of Sylt (Germany’s answer to the Hamptons),” she laughs, “they leave their big limousine in the garage and take their battered old VW Golf.”

Michael Becken, a professor of real estate management and a candidate for election to the city’s parliament this spring, wants to tap into Hamburg’s potential to become even more cosmopolitan. “Visitors are impressed by how attractive and liveable our city is. They’re surprised by the many landmarks, the attractive hotspots.” 

Such as? Immensely satisfying culinary experiences for a start – from the rowdy Fischmarkt on early Sunday mornings, via family-run trattoria, to serious Michelin-starred dining. And in Hamburg’s long nighthawk buzz, The Beatles were only one of many “beat groups” kicking off their career in the 1960s. The waterfront had already been swinging long centuries before.

Hats off to the The Beatles and everything down the Kaiserkeller back in 1960, but 65 years on the vibe’s a little different at Hamburg’s Fischmarkt. Bands play, DJs deejay, those long German beer tables rock side to side. You’ve seen the genteel side of the city. This is where other reputations are formed. (Alamy)

After 30 years in the city, Julia von Jenisch summarizes the appeal. “Hamburgers are convinced their city is the most beautiful in the world.” And of all the people Philipp Westermeyer knows who have moved to Hamburg, himself included, hardly anyone has left.

“But still,” Michael Becken argues, “Hamburg should grow.” His vision? “Copenhagen has a great spirit.” Perhaps that’s not surprising. Unlike any other major German city, there’s a Scandinavian feel to Hamburg, attributable to a shared past as part of the mediaeval Hanseatic League of trading cities.

Ultimately, trade and water and the wealth that spills from it still define the city, with the River Elbe, the Alster Lakes and the winding canals linking today’s occupational districts and striking up a meaningful conversation with their past.

Topics in this article

  • Reporter: Michael Hannwacker
  • Michael Hannwacker , a seasoned traveler with a PhD in art history, edits the leisure section of German business monthly €uro, works as deputy editor for Traveller’s World, a quarterly on luxe travel, and occasionally writes for dailies like NZZ and magazines such as Courage, a female finance title.

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