Merchants’ Dreams Behind Old and New Façades

The historic Speicherstadt: my favourite place. Here you walk in the footsteps of the past amid Wilhelminian brick Gothic. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is especially magical at dusk.

With the mysterious play of light and shadow, the warehouses then look almost ghostly.

“In warehouses great and full of splendour, trade rolls on by day and night” – this line was whispered through the warehouse city on the day of its grand opening in 1888.

A prestige project of Hamburg’s merchants had taken shape.

Join me on a journey back in time to the sweeping political events that made building the Speicherstadt necessary, and find out what tragic consequences they brought with them.

Immerse yourself in the world of flourishing trade of Hamburg’s legendary “pepper sacks” – the city’s wealthy merchants – in all its facets.

While you are still walking in the long-gone footsteps of another century, modernity hits you with full force: HafenCity – currently the largest inner-city development project in Europe. From the Kehrwiederspitze to the Elbe bridges, a completely new district is being built from scratch. We explore this youngest part of the city and its forward-looking architecture.

The finale is the spectacular Elbphilharmonie, our newest landmark, and the no less impressive story of how it came to be.

(Tickets must be booked separately: €2.00 per person when booked online; groups of 7 or more: €6.00 per person)