From where in Hamburg "City of warehouses"
speicherstadt
When you once again find yourself in Hamburg and will be tormented by the thought of where it would not be bad to spend time on the subject of culture and mass enlightenment, then you should not creak your cranial joints for a long time, but boldly head for the brick buildings in the Zollkanal area. It was here at the beginning of the 20th century that the most far-sighted merchants of that time moved their shops and warehouses, counting on enrichment, world fame and the development of global trade with subsequent registration in the WTO. The previously used area in the district of the Nikolaifleet canal at that time was already small in scale, and even smacked of philistinism and narrow-mindedness. In short, such small traders were no longer given loans. And the announcement of the German Empire about the recognition of Hamburg as a duty-free zone quickly sponsored the idea among the masses of the immediate destruction of wooden shacks and workshops of working people and the construction of commercial warehouses in their place.
More than 20.000 local residents were turned to forced migration for the sake of the development of spirit and time and trade.
The newly developed territory, which turned into a city of warehouses, was vast and very deep for mooring river vessels directly next to the building. Trucks parked on the other side. Even in our time, you can still see old-fashioned winches and cargo hatches under the very roof of eight-story warehouses with patterned brickwork, with the help of which ships were loaded and unloaded, so to speak, without leaving the entrance. Some winches are still spinning, though back-breaking human labor has long been replaced by an electric motor.
But in our case, the history of the development of trade turnover is not a key one, but an accompanying one.
2 kilometers of a picturesque complex of historical warehouses, referred to as the “city within a city” or the Kontorsky Quarter, with its brick architecture and cobblestone pavements, hosts a chic assortment of exhibitions and entertainment.
Of particular interest to the tourist will be museum arsenals - the Speicherstad Museum, the German Customs Museum, the Spice Museum, the Coffee Museum, the Hamburg Dungeons and the Museum of Miniatures. Having managed to inspect them all in a couple of days, I recommend moving further into the territory of the fashionable Hafen-city, which hides its bourgeois manners from the rest of Hamburg precisely behind Speicherstadt. Lovers of 21st century architecture, plastic windows and reinforced concrete structures, confidently settled around several heels with green seedlings, will feel at home here.
Hafen City is new and futuristic.
The idea of the authors cost a million dollars, a bunch of nerves, the work of a team of talented architects and open debates (well, at least not fights) in parliament on the rationality of using funds. One unfinished Philharmonic building is worth something!
But we, as tourists, do not need the difficulties of the local population. For practical use, Hafen City is good for having a museum of automobile prototypes, a passenger terminal, the beautiful Vasco de Gama embankment and traditional 20th-century ships located near it in the harbor, open to the public.
Summing up what I have written, I will confidently state that you will not lack quality entertainment. And if you take into account the labor activity of the Speicherstad area, the close proximity of Hafen City, the presence of industry conglomerates and the resulting number of hungry employees at lunchtime, then you are provided with a fair of inexpensive cafes.
Separately, I would forcibly advise you to visit this area in the evening, at a time when the night time takes over leadership in its daily struggle for a place under the sun, and the facades of the quarter are decorated with artistic lighting. At the hour of yellow lanterns, the colorful space looks deserted and tensely ominous. If Alan Poe created in our time, then he would conduct public utilities here. Well, if you are a very impressionable person and are not ready for such loads on the nervously sensitive apparatus, then set the alarm for 18.00 and look for entertainment in other parts of Hamburg at the time of closing offices.
P. s. By the way, such giants of the maritime business as Germanisher Lloyd, the monopoly of the Hamburg port company HHL, and the entire administration of the new seaport in Hamburg have acquired commercial real estate in the Speicherstad area, which is attractive in terms of history.
Good manners for maritime organizations in this case look very elegant and conservative.
Speicherstadt-erleben. de
