Our master plan has allowed Hamburg's city center to grow for a quarter of a century
The revitalization of former industrial and port areas continues to be one of the most important challenges of urban planning in major European cities. In Hamburg, the interdisciplinary master plan developed by ASTOC (Cologne), KCAP Architects & Planners (Rotterdam) in collaboration with the City of Hamburg has been transforming the derelict areas south of the historic Speicherstadt warehouse district into a densely mixed urban quarter since the early 2000s. The functional mix is seen as a driver of social and economic vitality, comparable to projects in Copenhagen, Rotterdam or Dublin. The 157-hectare HafenCity is an integral part of Hamburg with world-famous and much-discussed icons such as the Elbphilharmonie concert hall. It fulfills a dual role, creating urgently needed urban space and setting a new architectural, infrastructural and social standards. A symbol of the cosmopolitan and economically central Hamburg.
The programming of uses has changed several times over the course of time. Two real estate crises have left their mark, and climate change also requires new approaches. The robust basic structure of HafenCity can accommodate these changing requirements and continues to grow. Due to its long implementation period, it also allows for reflection on what has been created so far. It is exposed to criticism and can react to it. In the intensively used urban space, course corrections are made that take into account the current boundary conditions of urban life, climate and economy.
For us, HafenCity is an ongoing and dynamic process of redefining urban living spaces under changing ecological, social and technological conditions. HafenCity thus illustrates the extent to which major urban developments are always snapshots of social and economic standards and trends. This makes us proud and critical at the same time.
Photo credit: Thomas Hampel, M. Stein/Adobe, Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Leonhard Schenk, ASTOC