The Merchant's Hall

The hall at two levels is an example of the main representational room of a merchant's house. Particularly impressive is the richly carved pillar supporting the ceiling, which is painted with mostly religious scenes. A staircase with a double bend leads to a gallery formed of wooden balusters. The staircase handrail, with its finely fashioned banisters, is decorated at its bottom end with a carved moulding. From the gallery can be reached a living-room. Doors suggest the way to two further rooms facing the street. These were also used as living-rooms.

A generous expanse of glass from the canal (Fleet) side ensures adequate daylight for the hall. Underneath the gallery is the kitchen with open stove and flue as well as various cooking utensils (of copper, brass and tin). A further room is the office (Kontor), which was heated with a tiled stove from the next door room.

The large scales (dated 1638) and a device for hoisting goods up to the storage lofts provide evidence that the Hamburg merchant's houses combined living-rooms and rooms for trade and business under one roof. Goods could be delivered and dispatched both by water over the canals or by road on horse-drawn carts or hand-carts. The hall was not only used as a living-room in which festivities and funeral services were held, but it was also the room in which incoming and outgoing goods could be inspected, registered and also repacked.

The basis for the reconstruction of this merchant's hall are building elements from the second half of the 17th century taken from Deichstrasse 53. They have been aligned and fitted together in the floor plan. A painted wooden ceiling from a house (Grimm 31) and a wooden Baroque staircase with balustrade (Grosse Reichenstrasse 38) were also built in.