Editorial

Ocean-going liners sailing by, the booming of foghorns and the alluring sound of waves lapping against harbour walls seduce us with dreams of travel and distant continents. Landing bridges tell of arriving and departing, ships sailing away leave us with a yearning to travel. Moments such as these exert a particular fascination on the inhabitants of a land-locked country. This is true not only of exotic locations, but also of places much closer. It especially applies to the „Free and Hanseatic City“ of Hamburg, to which we devote this issue. Water was and is the resource out of which this city grows, in both the literal and metaphorical senses, and from which the city as an artefact has produced works of architectural and urban importance. Accurate descriptions have been made of the city's amphibian character. After the devastating fire of 1842 Hamburg renewed its appearance. Concepts that were articulated at that time - namely by Alexis de Chateauneuf, but also by Gottfried Semper - inspired, until into the interwar period, the ideas and completed projects of the influential Hamburg planner and architect, Fritz Schumacher, whose successful strategy encompassed, in equal measure, the preservation of the surviving historic substance and the active design control of newly built residential districts. Even after the devastation by the firebombing in 1943 much of this model of the urban structure remained visible and the desire for clear significance remained tangible. In recent times Hamburg has prescribed itself a new and powerful injection of growth and has attracted attention with its slogan of the „growing“ city, largely because overall - and indeed in its immediate vicinity - ways and means are being sought of dealing with the drastic phenomenon of shrinking cities. The core of this plan – the largest urban development project in Europe – is the „Hafencity“ (harbour city). The estimated cost of the master plan for the development of this area of 155 hectares is five thousand million Euro, to be spread over a time horizon of 25 years. This gigantic undertaking will expand the inner city by no less than 40 per cent! Whether the time is right for this kind of project is at present a matter of heated debate. The aim to compete with the major world metropolises, to participate in the mainstream of economic globalisation and to give these goals an urban and architectural form also harbours certain dangers – namely the risk that multi-million Euro investor projects of international dimensions could transform this city of character into one that looks no different from many others throughout the world. Or does this problem perhaps indicate a different, greater dilemma, a drifting apart of the disciplines of urban planning and architecture? The focus in this issue is on current aspects of urban planning in Hamburg, while also taking a number of backward looks at the city's past, at the work of the important architect Bernhard Hermkes, as well as at the unusually lively subculture of young Hamburg architects. Evidence that interesting architecture has been produced in Hamburg in recent times is provided by a selection of buildings that we introduce here pars pro toto, as it were. Not yet completed is the new Hamburg „Philharmonie“, a visionary project by Herzog & de Meuron that has both the substance and charisma to become a symbol of the city. This issue would not have been possible without the helpfulness and willingness to talk to us shown by a number of reliable sources. To these people, who received us so warmly in their town and provided many helpful suggestions, we owe our special thanks. In addition to the authors themselves these were: Martin Boesch, Christian Herbert, Franz-Josef Höing, Gian-Marco Jenatsch, Hanno Rauterberg, Dirk Schubert and Christiane Sörensen. The Editors