Here’s a quick quiz for the Eurocentric among you:

• Massive port? You’d probably think Rotterdam.
• Great galleries? You’d probably think Paris.
• Crazy red light district? Amsterdam perhaps?
• Plenty of space and shots of modern architecture amongst the works of old? Berlin.

How about… Hamburg. Not what springs to mind for most perhaps and the locals will probably tell you it rains here 300 days of the year. It probably does, too, maybe just for five minutes on some days and a more decent attempt on others - but in these days of climate change where can you think of that has “normal” weather anymore?

Hamburg’s Docklands: A little odd-looking

Give a place a bad reputation and it’ll keep those space-hogging travellers away - say it rains and it poured, so the saying could go. So why not look at Hamburg as that rocking city to the north of Deutschland, up between Kiel and Rostock and a gateway to Scandinavia, too. It’s the home of the infamous St Pauli soccer team, in-and-out again of the national league, a kult phenomenon, with its skull and crossbones insignia, bold left-wing politics and playing of AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” at the start of every home game. Not exactly the mark of a town that just sits on its hands while the world around it turns.

Quietly Hamburg manages to be the second-largest city in Germany - at around 1.8 million it’s bigger than Munich and nearly twice the size of Koln, which may come as a surprise as Hamburg doesn’t trumpet this from its roof tops. Straddling the mighty Elbe River, Hamburg is the second-largest port in Europe and the largest city not to be a capital. So apart from the stats, what is really there to brag about?

Hamburg: Quietly bizarre

Apart from the architectural boastings of the Netherlands, the docklands area of Hamburg - accessible from Landungsbrucken and easily visible from a ferry ride of the harbour or one of the Rundfarht (round trips) - offers a host of architectural eye-candy, and frequently in the least suspecting forms.

Hamburg’s Elbphilhamonie: Also a little odd-looking

The HafenCity (Port City) development offers a wealth of the quietly bizarre and overwhelming - like the new Science Centre, somewhat like a muscular and circular arrangement of duplo-blocks on steroids. Or the currently underway and “now famous before it is built” Elbphilharmonie, itself resembling a flaming crystal curtain, ablaze atop the existing and already distinctive Kaispeicher (an old harbourside storage warehouse).

These bold developments will at least garner an opinion for those that venture up to the north to see them. Even the septic tanks have an otherworldy feel to them with their patterned steel expansive orbs, yet this and the many others on show by the water, somehow preserve a warmth that is often absent in modern architectural muscle flexing.

One thing that hasn’t changed over the decades is the infamous Reeperbahn, the red-light district of the city by St Pauli; the host of churches, if that’s your thing; and a plethora or theatres and some 79 museums. There is a healthy choice of musical venues, of the classical, operatic and contemporary kind, though locals would argue there isn’t enough.

Let’s not forget, too, that the world may be a somewhat musically different place if it wasn’t for the Beatles spending those important years in Hamburg in the early 1960s, cutting their musical teeth at the Indra Club and the Top Ten Club among others.

Since the 1980s the city has also produced the Hamburger Schule (Hamburger School) notable in particular for the resurgence of interest in German-sung lyrics. Among this wave is the popular band from the mid-1990s Tocotronic, whose relaxed pop sensibilities continue to headline at festivals in the German summer.

Mark Rothko in Hamburg: It makes complete sense

If you visit Hamburg now until the 24 August, the overwhelmingly impressive Mark Rothko retrospective awaits at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. This is an encounter with art that only really speaks in person - quite a far cry from the clumsily sized reproductions of his works found in books and even on posters. There is no shortage of people ready to extol Rothko’s virtues as an artist and its been said that the his large-scale paintings pulse or resonate - the larger part of the collection being mostly over two metres and slowly worked, hand painted surfaces, which make them starkly unlike the postmodern machine- or screen-printed super-sized works found in many modern galleries.

Five of these pieces in a room do more than just pulse: from the corner of your eye they readily seem to flicker and demand your attention. More than just a rare chance to see 70 works on display, the Kunsthalle’s unique architecture allows a place to comfortably sit and contemplate these works over the top two floors of its relatively newer wing, overlooking a central courtyard that shifts and glows with the sun’s passing rays.

The highlight of this experience is the constantly changing, yet always sonorous, sound installation from the permanent collection in the basement floor below: six pairs of aluminium pipes, each with a speaker and microphone at opposite ends, triggered by motion sensors to record the movements of visitors in this room and play them back a minute later, with beautiful counter-point by sensor triggered, small pneumatic hammers that gently resonate the pipes.

This warmly responsive and dedicated space echoes throughout the Rothko exhibit, in some places almost resonating more strongly three floors higher than in the basement from where they issue; adding the perfect undertone to a major experience in an approach to a unique series of artworks. As you will find on the internet, the Rothko oeuvre might not look like much at a small size, but when the original works are approached, it becomes apparent that the focus is not the undulating block colours themselves , but the slow spaces in between. Perhaps there could be a reason why this exhibition has come to the city of Hamburg. A slow unfolding of a quietly kept secret.

-Robert Curgenven

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s Hamburg tours and things to do in Munich and Berlin.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 12:35 am and is filed under Destinations, Europe, The Art of Travel, Travel Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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