Take Is As Red | Hamburg

01 Sprinkenhof, built between 1927 and 1943 in three phases by Hans and Oskar Gerson and Fritz Hoger 02 Speicherstadt Wandrahmsfleet, a warehouse district Report Hamburg 01 Take it It is a German trait to always look for the roten Faden: the “red thread” (the leit- as red motif or the recurrent theme) that runs Hamburg through a conversation, an article or a — train of thought. In Hamburg’s architec- Preface tural history, said thread is very definitely Since the 1800s this has been the city of bricks. red – in the form of its brickwork. It's a legacy that modern Hamburg’s ubiquitous red bricks architects are happy to and “clinkers” – bricks fired so hot they build upon as they stay vitrify, creating dense blocks that clink true to a distinctive style. when hit – have indelibly coloured the — Writer cityscape. Their warm hues paint maroon, Kimberly Bradley rust and crimson stripes through the city in municipal buildings, neo-gothic Photographer Bernd Jonkmanns warehouses, modernist housing projects and now even the luxury buildings in Hamburg’s massive urban expansion: the HafenCity. “The topic of the red bricks and red clinkers is inexhaustible,” says architect Design Directory 1 — issue 83 — 149 02 Report 01 Architect Torsten Stern Hamburg 02 Sculptures rise up the Brahms Kontor façade 03 Davidwache police station, designed by Fritz Schumacher 04 Residential district of Altona, by Gustav Oelsner movement for red brick out of the mate- 05 HafenCity: view Yellow-brick road rial itself. An architectural language will from Kaiserkai — be developed that will be characteristic of 06 Entrance to Fritz Interwar ethos Hamburg’s individuality and at the same Höger’s Chilehaus Danish school 07 Chilehaus was time useful for modern urban needs.” A third colour runs “He was of the opinion that red constructed with through Hamburg but a nautical look only in the districts of brick is something that belongs here,” Altona (see picture, left) says Gefroi. “It has to do with the wind and Ottensen. Here, and rain and water. It has a certain hon- housing projects and esty.” Schumacher got busy and erected municipal buildings are 01 schools, municipal buildings, office often clad in yellow- brownish clinker brick. buildings and major housing estates. All Why? Altona was long appeared in the material, especially in the Danish, then politically a 1920s, with increasingly modernist traits separate city until after such as flat rooftops, horizontal bands of Torsten Stern. “It is a deep-seated image the Second World War, windows (usually framed in white) and and thus had a different people have when they think of Hamburg. master builder. Gustav functionality. Early examples include the It is also a charming tradition since it’s a Oelsner preferred yellow famous Davidwache police station on the local material that gives the city something over Fritz Schumacher’s Reeperbahn and the Hamburg art school, special.” Stern specialises in large-scale red and obtained his raw both of which still exhibit a bit of ornament; interiors and is the founder of A-Tour, a materials from a different later came more reduced Schumacher 04 clay quarry. The two were group of architects who lead architectural friends and often praised designs, including the Hamburg Finance tours through the Hanseatic city-state; one another’s work; like Agency at Gänsemarkt (1926) whose win- he has even created a special tour focused Schumacher, Oelsner dows wind around a maroon façade. on the material. was ousted in 1933 and Why brick and why red? The mate- began a long exile in the As an architect Schumacher designed a US and Turkey until 1949. rials date back to the city’s origins in His visual legacy lives on. seemingly endless list of buildings him- the 1200s; it was durable and it was self but also delegated to colleagues such available (clay quarries lay just south of 02 as Fritz Höger, whose Chilehaus is per- the city). The colour correlates to high Quiet riot haps Hamburg’s best-known architec- iron content in the native soil. In the — tural landmark. Built from 1922 to 1924 late 1800s, when the city was growing 19th-century influence it is representative of an architectural rapidly, its Speicherstadt (the harbour Neoclassical movement named after the material: warehouse district) was erected in red- Not all of Hamburg is brick expressionism. Also involved were built from red clinker brick neo-gothic turrets, towers and brick. Around the inner Hans and Oskar Gerson who, in collabo- 05 vertical lines. “The look was trendy at the and outer Alster Lakes ration with Höger, built the imposing time; it was called the Hannover School and on the green belt Sprinkenhof office building from 1927 to and cropped up throughout northern heading west along the 1943, a stone’s throw from the Brahms Germany,” says Claas Gefroi, an archi- Elbe (but not directly on Kontorhaus built by architects including its bank), an opposing tectural journalist and spokesperson for architectural style is Werner Lundt und Georg Kallmorgen the Hamburg Architektenkammer (the dominant: gleaming from 1904 to 1931. chamber that all local architects must white neoclassical Schumacher also planned and be members of; each federal state in structures that reveal 06 orchestrated the construction of vast Germany has one). the city’s historical residential estates such as Jarrestadt, wealth (but not too The Hannover School’s aesthetic was ostentatiously). Primarily just northeast of the Alster Lakes. Here not unique to Hamburg but the Hanses- built in the late 19th he hired local architects including Karl tadt’s signature style wasn’t far off – and century during one of Schneider and Heinrich Bornhoff to it was largely due to one man. Architect Hamburg’s many growth design high-quality, efficient, modern- and urban planner Fritz Schumacher spurts, the grand villas ist buildings containing compact apart- or white-stuccoed took the office of Hamburg building multifamily homes ments for workers, à la Le Corbusier’s director in 1909 and essentially branded show Hamburg’s more “machines for living”. Smaller estates are the hometown material as the way to peaceful, private side. sprinkled through Hamburg-Dulsberg future urban living. Red brick became and red-brick buildings dot other parts of an architectural ideology. “I admire the the city. They have long integrated them- gothic style,” the architect wrote. “But selves into the city’s property jargon: if my efforts are to give new life to the a Hamburger mentions he or she has a 03 150 — issue 83 — Design Directory 1 Design Directory 1 — issue 83 — 151 07 Report 01 Jarrestadt is a Hamburg residential housing complex in the Winterhude district 02 Architect Claas Gefroi 03 Architects are in discussions on how to modernise Jarrestadt’s landmark buildings new apartment the first question is often 04 Main entrance to “Prewar or red clinker?” the Sprinkenhof The red came to stand for Ham- burg’s autonomy, its sensitivity to social issues and utopian visions of modernity (as local as his vision was, Schumacher was definitely Bauhaus-influenced). “You could say it is Hamburg’s vernacular architecture,” says Gefroi with a hint of hesitation. He wonders whether Hamburg would have been so red and bricky with- out Schumacher but admits that Schu- macher’s vision – promptly truncated by the Nazis who threw the far too liberal and modernist urban planner out of his position in the early 1930s – has amaz- ingly carried on through the decades. Postwar housing reused the bricks found in piles of rubble (admittedly of lower quality). Later structures such as the 01 02 Hanseviertel shopping centre built by and ochre in very old and very new Gerkan, Marg und Partner (an archi- constructions overlap in a beautiful, tectural firm that built not only Tegel multidimensional way. But Stern points Airport in Berlin but also planned the out one last roten Faden that has run for ill-fated new Berlin Airport) in the centuries through this city-state built late 1970s echo the style. In the 1980s, on independence, free trade and lots of Hamburg’s building director Egbert rough salt water and wind: practicality. Kossak mandated the use of red brick, Red bricks withstand it all. “Don’t forget creating a backlash in glass in the years Hamburgers are merchants; they watch following; newer developments (under their money,” he says. “They don’t build Jörn Walter, building director since 1999) in red brick only because they think it is see a return to tradition. “Now we are beautiful but because they know it will going back to the roots,” says Stern. “You last.” It certainly has. — (m) can build in red brick but you don’t have 03 to. You do it where it fits.” It fits in redevelopments such as the Holzhafen on the River Elbe where Köln- based architects Astoc used an imported orange-red clinker brick (the nearby quarries are empty these days; clay is obtained from a bit further away in Denmark or Holland) as cladding for a large multi- use building finished in 2013; its mass is broken by perforations and a winding footprint. A car park in the old Speich- erstadt, just steps from the HafenCity, quotes the subtle brickwork of a century ago. Even the Ecumenical Forum, a 2012 office and residential building by Wandel Hoefer Lorch housing “19 Christian denominations”, creatively uses red clinker in its interiors and curvy exteriors. From some vantage points in the stormy HafenCity the shades of red 152 — issue 83 — Design Directory 1 04.

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