5 urban monuments in Hamburg

Artist Boran Burchhardt has applied a few thousand strips of gold leaf to a brick façade of more than 300 square metres. The artwork will apparently last for a quarter of a century. With this project, the artist created a controversial symbol in Hamburg’s urban development policy. The district is home to a lot of migrants and is not particularly wealthy. Gentrification by gilding?

The Rote Flora is seen today as a ‘popular political trouble-maker’ in the heart of the Sternschanze district, where spiralling prices are squeezing people out. When the city and an investor wanted to replace the 1000 Töpfe department store (Rote Flora) with a musical theatre in 1987, the locals considered it a step too far. Protests were held and the Rote Flora was occupied.

Though the police district is the smallest in Europe, at just under one square kilometre in size and with around 14.000 residents, according to the annual police statistics it is nevertheless still the scene of the most crimes. The cult Davidwache has been on the corner of Reeperbahn and Davidstrasse since 1914, making Hamburg’s Kiez secure.

A number of Hamburg’s museum ships lie at moorings between Elbstrand and HafenCity: the Rickmer Rickmers, the Cap San Diego and the Feuerschiff are shooting stars. But one marine vessel lies low: the Russian navy Tango-class 434 submarine. The world’s largest nonatomic submarine can be viewed along the side of the Fischmarkt any Sunday.

Many Hamburg residents had never heard of the ‘Findling’ boulder of Elbgrund until January 2019. In a cloakand- dagger operation, unknown artists sprayed it all over with gold paint. The huge, 217-ton nugget on the Elbstrand swiftly became a popular photo motif. In the end, the Hamburg Port Authority had it cleaned again.