Elbphilharmonie Plaza, Hamburg
Herzog & de Meuron's wave-roofed Elbphilharmonie concert hall is Hamburg's most dramatic piece of 21st-century architecture, rising from a converted 1960s warehouse on the HafenCity waterfront. The publicly accessible Plaza on the 8th floor wraps around the entire building at 37 metres above the Elbe, offering a free panorama of container ships, the Speicherstadt warehouse district and the city sk
The View and the Building
From the Plaza's curved glass balcony you can watch massive container vessels glide beneath you toward the Port of Hamburg — Europe's third-largest port — while the red-brick Speicherstadt canals stretch away to the south and the Alster lakes shimmer to the north. It is one of the finest urban panoramas in northern Europe and it costs nothing.
The building's undulating glass facade contains 1,096 individually shaped and curved glass panels, each printed with a dot pattern that controls glare and reflections. The effect from outside shifts from silver to gold depending on the light and the time of day.
Combining with HafenCity
The Elbphilharmonie sits at the western tip of HafenCity, Hamburg's ambitious 157-hectare harbour redevelopment that is still partly under construction and fascinating to walk through. The Miniatur Wunderland — the world's largest model railway exhibition — is a five-minute walk away in the Speicherstadt and is a genuine wonder for all ages.
If you can secure concert tickets (book months in advance at elbphilharmonie.de), the main Grand Hall seats 2,100 and is acoustically celebrated worldwide; even a midweek lunchtime chamber concert makes for an unforgettable afternoon.
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