Hamburg - Speicherstadt

Speicherstadt literally means Storage City. A vast area of warehouses within the port of Hamburg which makes up an entire borough by itself. Hamburg already had a large harbor in the 1800s, and there was a need for storage space for all sorts of goods that had to be stored for temporary and longer periods of time. So a greater design began taking shape in the early 1880s focusing on a duty free zone. In the following decades the newly developed area kept growing according to an ever growing demand. The most famous storages were those of the coffee and tea importers, who not only stored the commodity, but also roasted and processed it according to the individual taste of wholesale customers. The only noteworthy branch from the heyday that still uses the storages are the carpet dealers. However, demand has decreased in the past 50 years due to dramatic changes in global goods movement (esp. through the introduction of the standardized container), hence the vast spaces are being used by other branches of business. Especially the creative scene and museums have established themselves in the old buildings, which in the meantime have become a UNESCO Heritage Site. 

The canals are used for transporting goods from the main harbor areas to the warehouses.

Nowadays there are far more tourist boats than anything.

The smaller building with the rounded corner roofs in the background is the Harbor Police Post No. 2,

which is being used as a fictional police station in a popular German TV series (Notruf Hafenkante).

Behind that are the towering cranes of the harbors largest dockyard (Blohm & Voss).

Ship propeller in front of the Maritime Museum. A nice detail is the top floor crane unit.

Goods were hauled up from the barges to according floors.

A double pedestrian bridge across one of the canals.

Störtebeker Memorial. Legendary Klaus Störtebeker was Germanys most famous pirate.

This is the spot where he and some 70 of his companions were beheaded in 1401.

The Hamburg Gallery