The Speicherstadt of Hamburg: Hanseatic Warehouses Today
The Speicherstadt, the largest warehouse district in the world where the buildings stand on timber-pile foundations driven into the riverbed, is one of Hamburg’s most distinctive districts and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 2015, jointly with the adjacent Kontorhaus district). The district was built in 1885–1927, and the district is a remarkable example of the brick Gothic style applied to commercial buildings. The district is, in many ways, a reminder of the Hanseatic heritage of the city, and the district is one of the principal tourist attractions of Hamburg.
The world’s largest warehouse district
The Speicherstadt was built on a series of artificial islands in the Elbe, and the islands were created by driving piles into the riverbed and filling the spaces between the piles with sand. The warehouses were built on the islands, and the warehouses were connected by a network of canals and bridges. The warehouses were built of brick, in the brick Gothic style, and the warehouses are some of the most distinctive commercial buildings in Germany.
The Speicherstadt was built to store the goods that were handled by the port of Hamburg, and the warehouses were, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the principal commercial centre of the city. The warehouses stored a wide variety of goods, including coffee, tea, tobacco, spices, and cocoa, and the warehouses were the principal channel through which these goods reached the markets of central Europe.
A useful comparative: the Speicherstadt covers about 26 hectares, with about 300,000 m² of storage space, and it is the largest contiguous warehouse complex in the world. The 24 streets of the Speicherstadt are named after commodities (Kaffee-Quartier, Tabak-Quartier) and trading regions (Afrika-Quartier, Asien-Quartier). The narrowness of the streets and the height of the warehouses (up to 8 storeys) are dictated by the limited ground available on the artificial islands.
From warehouse to office
The Speicherstadt declined in importance in the second half of the twentieth century, as the port of Hamburg moved downstream and as the warehouses were no longer needed for the storage of goods. The Speicherstadt was, however, recognised as an important architectural monument, and the warehouses were gradually converted to other uses. The warehouses are now used for offices, for museums, for residential apartments, and for the storage of oriental carpets, and the Speicherstadt is one of the principal cultural and commercial districts of Hamburg.
A specific note: the Spicy’s spice museum, the Hamburg Dungeon, the Miniatur Wunderland (one of the world’s largest model railway exhibits), and the Afghan carpet warehouse are among the present-day occupants of the Speicherstadt. The Speicherstadt has, in effect, been re-born as a tourist and cultural district, while retaining much of its 19th-century commercial character.
UNESCO World Heritage
The Speicherstadt was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015, together with the adjacent Kontorhaus district, which is a remarkable example of early twentieth-century office architecture. The Kontorhaus district includes the famous Chilehaus, a remarkable expressionist office building that was built in 1922–1924 by the architect Fritz Höger and that is one of the most distinctive buildings of the city. The Chilehaus is, by UNESCO’s description, “an outstanding example of the Backsteinexpressionismus style of architecture, in which the characteristic material of Hanseatic building — brick — is used to dramatic effect.”
The Speicherstadt and the Kontorhaus district are, in many ways, a reminder of the Hanseatic heritage of Hamburg. The Speicherstadt is a continuation of the Hanseatic tradition of warehouse districts, and the Speicherstadt is a remarkable example of the brick Gothic style that the Hanseatic builders developed. The Speicherstadt and the Kontorhaus district are, in this sense, an important part of the cultural heritage of the Hanseatic League.