https://www.ft.com/content/f5887242-20c8-499b-9740-4d47af5e54b9
"It’s not often I get to stay in a city hotel bristling with lightning
conductors for fear of forest fire. Or in whose eighth floor room I feel
impelled to draw the curtains, lest I provide involuntary entertainment for
abseiling gardeners, or for passers-by on a so-called “mountain path”.
But this remarkable new hotel in Hamburg, veiled as it is with elaborate
hanging gardens, is unlike any other — both a model of sustainability and an
uncomfortable lump of war history. Finally opened on July 5, two years behind
schedule, the new foliage-clad part squats atop a giant Nazi bunker, built in
1942 by a thousand slave labourers. Originally 38 metres tall, and with
steel-reinforced concrete walls 3.5 metres thick, it was judged too big to
knock down, and has endured as the most brutal of brutalist landmarks.
It’s a bold move to open a hotel in a challenging property like this, but in
recent years Germany has led the way in repurposing difficult structures. The
spectacular tangle of metal and steel that was the Völklingen Ironworks is now
partly a music venue; a massive blast furnace in Duisburg now hosts a cinema;
and the giant gasometer in Oberhausen has become an art gallery.
They do it for hotels, too. Here in Hamburg there are already two examples: the
Mövenpick in a former water tower, and the sophisticated Westin at the
Elbphilharmonie, housed in a magnificent glass wave created atop a former
tobacco warehouse in the reborn HafenCity docks area. The latter, known locally
as the Elphi, was controversial for delays and a huge budget overrun, but has
since become such a successful national symbol that it was the venue for the
draw for the Euro 2024 football tournament.
But the Hamburg Bunker is in another league. Originally known as Flakturm IV,
it was one of eight vast flak towers built across Germany in response to RAF
air-raids on Berlin in 1940. Hamburg, with its key role in oil production, ship
and submarine building, was an obvious target. The towers had anti-aircraft
guns on the roof, while the buildings themselves acted as civilian air-raid
shelters; Flakturm IV was designed to accommodate 18,000 people, though was
sometimes used by many more.
Now visitors are being encouraged to “experience the magic of this historic
place” in an unlikely €100mn reinvention as what the tourist board is touting
as a new cultural and gastronomic hub for the city, with four restaurants, roof
terraces and a concert hall, as well as the hotel."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
