Hamburg’s Beautiful Windows: Where To Get Perfect Frames For Photos!
Windows are the souls of rooms and they give a frame to the view outside. During my wanderings through Hamburg, I have noticed many beautiful windows. This time I will share nine glassy highlights with you that give your photos a perfect framing!
TEXT & PHOTOS: SUSANNE KRIEG
University of Fine Arts (HFBK)
You love Art Nouveau? Then we have something in common – and your hearts will surely beat faster when you stand in front of this splendid glass specimen at Hamburg’s Academy of Fine Arts. The building in the Uhlenhorst district was designed between 1911 and 1913 by Fritz Schuhmacher, Hamburg’s godfather of brick (some of his other buildings I have shown here before). The seven metre high glass art in the entrance hall of the HFBK was created by Carl Otto Czeschka. This Austrian graphic artist and painter, Schuhmacher chose for this job, was one of the most important designers of the Wiener Werkstätte.
→ Hochschule für bildende Künste, Lerchenfeld 2, 22081 Hamburg I map
West Wing, Main University Building
Trees of Knowledge: to be found in the west wing next to the main building of the University of Hamburg in the Emund-Siemers-Allee. The structure with its glass front and glass roof houses the art historians and lawyers.
→ Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146 Hamburg I map
Zollenspieker Fährhaus
The public transport bus No. 120, also known as the “Stint-Express”, will take you from the main station to Kirchwerder in less than an hour. On an Elbe dike in the south-east of the city, the Zollenspieker Fährhaus serves fish, homemade food, butter cake and beer. In the adjoining “Pegelhaus” on stilts, it is also possible to enjoy a romantic dinner under a chandelier with a view of the water – in what is said to be the world’s smallest restaurant.
→ Zollenspieker Fährhaus, Zollenspieker-Hauptdeich 141, 21037 Hamburg I map
Fischauktionshalle
The Altonaer Fischauktionshalle on the banks of the Elbe, built in the style of a basilica, always reminds me of a building from a Steampunk novel! The only thing missing is a crazy professor working on the balustrade on some kind of time travel machine with electrified wings…. In reality, goods used to be stored in front of the huge windows.
→ Fischauktionshalle, Große Elbstraße 9, 22767 Hamburg I map
Strandperle
The “Oberdeck” is a small but grandiose room above the “Strandperle”, a bar on the sandy shore of Övelgönne with a unique view over the Elbe, harbour, cranes, ships and the beach. There is room for 16 people. Maybe that’s enough for a small wedding. Here you can enjoy an unforgettable atmosphere and sail into the harbour of marriage!
→ Oberdeck (Strandperle), Övelgönne 60, 22605 Hamburg I map
Große Elbstraße
I call it: THE WINDOW. A real icon on Instagram. Without exaggeration “one of Hamburg’s most instagrammable places” – and a must for every Hamburg gallery. The glass front is part of an office building on Grosse Elbstraße, directly at the edge of Altona’s harbor front. Next door there is a cash machine, which is why I discovered this window in the first place. Opposite: the “Schellfischposten” and “Haifischbar”, two rustic harbour pubs.
→ Große Elbstraße 43 – 49, 22767 Hamburg I map
Elbphilharmonie
Glide up the 80-metre-long tube of the Elbphilharmonie’s escalator tube, filled with 7,900 glass pills, in a high arch! You’ll arrive on a kind of mezzanine floor in front of a panoramic window from a height of 26 metres with views down the Elbe. On the left you have the musical theatre of Stage Entertainment, on the right the landing bridges with the ships “Rickmer Rickmers” and “Cap San Diego”. Once you’ve seen enough for the time being, a smaller escalator and a few steps will take you up to the Plaza.
→ Platz der Deutschen Einheit 1, 20457 Hamburg I map
Dammtor Train Station
On 7 June 1903, the modern Dammtor railway station was officially opened in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm II. The hall made of windows and steel is 23.5 metres high and is now a listed building. In the light-flooded construction, renowned guests of state were received time and again: for example the British king Edward VII, the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, Queen Elizabeth, Margarethe of Denmark or the Shah of Persia… Maybe you, too?
→ Theodor-Heuss-Platz 3-1, 20354 Hamburg I map
Post Office Grindelviertel
The old post office building in the Grindelviertel could have come directly from an English Gothic novel. In fact, from 1902 onwards, it served initially as Hamburg’s first long-distance telephone office and later also as the headquarters of NORAG, the radio station of the “Nordic Broadcasting Company” (later NDR). I am not often here, but whenever autumn comes, I go to the post office in Schlüterstraße several times to admire the Indian Summer spectacle, which then wraps around the neo-gothic window above the main entrance.
→ Schlüterstraße 51 – 53, 20146 Hamburg I map
