3 | HAFENCITY DISCUSSION PAPER Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg HAFENCITY HAMBURG – IDENTITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND URBANITY Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg HAFENCITY HAMBURG – IDENTITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND URBANITY HafenCity discussion paper no. 3 Hamburg, September 2014 / revised edition This HafenCity essay is the long version of a book essay published in 2013 in: ST. KATHARINEN Die Hauptkirche und ihr Viertel – eine Wiederentdeckung Published by Hauptkirche St. Katharinen ELBE&FLUT Edition/Junius-Verlag (2013) ISBN: 978-3-88506-026-4 www.hafencity.com/en/publications.html Abstract: How can the guiding perspectives of the HafenCity development over and beyond the master plan, which describe the production of “city” as a process, be characterized? This essay is devoted to answering this question. The development process of HafenCity – or so runs the argument – has witnessed the emergence of three overlapping, tangible and intangible perspectives of thought and action: identity, sustainability and urbanity. This multi-dimensional orientation is linked with highly challenging global and local demands that intersect with the urban spatial dimensions as a “new downtown” and “waterfront” urban development project. Author: Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg HafenCity Hamburg GmbH Osakaallee 11, 20457 Hamburg E-mail:
[email protected] The author is chief executive officer of HafenCity Hamburg GmbH since 2003 and also Honorary Professor of Integrated Urban Development at HafenCity University, Hamburg. 1 HAFENCITY HAMBURG – The radical nature of this transformation is based on two factors. In contrast to the IDENTITY, SUSTAINABILITY high-quality brick buildings of the warehouse district, the HafenCity area had largely AND URBANITY featured relatively unassuming functional buildings, most of them single-storey storage sheds, such as are still to be found today in the Oberhafen, or upper port, district.