The finale and overture at the same time: the Elbe Tower in Hamburg will be the conclusion of HafenCity’s development and simultaneously the prelude to the entrance to Hamburg’s city center and the future urban development areas of Billebogen and Grasbrook. Less than a year after the first announcement of Hamburg’s plans for a high-rise building on the Elbe bridges in HafenCity, building owners and architects are now certain. Following the design by David Chipperfield Architects, SIGNA Prime Selection AG will implement the project.
In the future, the Elbtower will take its place almost as a matter of course as an increasingly familiar part of Hamburg’s urban landscape, forming a — privately built and financed — sculptural urban counterpart to the Elbphilharmonie. It was the design’s great iconographic power coupled with a respectful incorporation into Hamburg’s built environment that convinced the jury assessing the three best bidder offers and purchase agreements on January 31, 2018.
The Elbtower is neither an architectural diva nor does it symbolize an architectural extravaganza. Its distinguished and elegant form creates a surprising interplay from every angle and enters into lively dialog with the neighborhood.
The building is suited on an almost triangular plot amid major infrastructure (rail tracks, roads) and directly adjacent to the first bridging point over the River Elbe. The tower soars upwards from a broad, triangular base, four to five stories high, that takes up the majority of the plot. The tower’s structural form is composed of an interplay between concave building contours.
