Having lain vacant for a quarter of a century, an iconic water tower dating back to 1910 has joined Hamburg’s growing roster of once-derelict industrial structures (think warehouses, gasworks factories and steel foundries) turned outré hotels.
The latest is from the Mövenpick group which spent 3 years and €50million to breathe new life into the long-abandoned listed city landmark.
Located on a leafy hillside in edgy Schanzenviertel’s Sternschanzen Park, guests access the 226-room brick-clad octagonal first through a partially buried crescent entrance that’s discreetly covered by earth and landscaped with stonework, and then via a striking 25-metre inclined subterranean moving walkway. The dimly lit lobby into which they are deposited, features a series of dramatic vaulted catacombs that date back to 1860s when the eight-metre high foundations were used as a water reservoir.
Mindful that most guests are oft-weary road-warriors not impressed by the superfluous, the Reutlingen-based interior design team of Markus-Diedenhofen employed a restrained approach by brightening the otherwise dark environs with new light wells that bring the outside into the cross-vaulting and onto the high bulwarks; Berlin-based artist Ulrike Böhme’s moody light and sound installations, which recall the buildings sodden provenance and brighten everything from elevators to escalators, soften the corporate hotel feel and add to the sense of airiness even more.
Still there are more than a few enticing nooks-and-crannies to lure the city’s fussy nocturnally inclined beau monde, most notably The Cave, an aptly named basement boîte which, like the rest of the hotel’s furnishings, features fixtures swathed in muted crèmes, with the added benefit of the continental cookery of Oliver Beck.
Above ground, Munich architects Falk von Tettenborn have retained and restored Wilhelm Schwarz’s original fin-de-siècle clinker-brick façade, complete with its Hanseatic ornamentation and reliefs as well as an exterior staircase, all of which were under preservation order. Rooms, meanwhile, are done up in soft earth tones and feature detailed architectural sketches, flatscreen TVs and stylish Zebrano partitions; they are spread over 17 circular floors, each with panoramas that are best viewed from one of the two rooftop Tower Suites, whose 60-metre perch above ground affords a stunning and unique vantage of Hamburg’s industrial makeup.
INFORMATION
- Website
- http://www.wasserturm-schanzenpark.de
- Telephone
- 49.40 334 4110
- Address
- Sternschanze 6
20357 Hamburg
Germany
