Speicherstadt: the Hamburg district newly classified by UNESCO

art and culture
Speicherstadt: the Hamburg district newly classified by UNESCO

Surprisingly, Hamburg has more bridges and canals than Amsterdam. Here is just a sample.

‘Vertiginous'—this is the word that comes to mind when walking the streets of Speicherstadt (‘City of Warehouses'). Bordering the canals and near the Elbe, the building complex was built between 1885 and 1927. Behind the facades of neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque brick, coffee and spices were stored along with other goods. In the summer of 2015, the 370,000-square-metre district was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the nearby Kontorhaus District, built in the 1920s and 1930s. A place of commercial port transactions it was, according to UNESCO, the first business district in Europe. It includes the Chilehaus (the ‘house of Chile'), an architectural curiosity that recalls the prow of a ship. The architect Fritz Höger designed it for the ship owner Henry Sloman, whose fortune came from Chilean saltpetre. Push open one of its doors and have a peak at its fascinating interiors.

Fischertwiete 2
20095 Hamburg

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