TextVersion · The museum

The Museum of Hamburg History is an impressive brick building with a striking roof landscape, crowned by a tower that is designed as a lighthouse. Build by the renowned Hamburg architect Fritz Schumacher between 1914 and 1922, the museum was opened in 1922.
In 1989 the glass roof of the courtyard followed.

The museum was built on the site of the former Bastion Henricus, a part of the baroque fortification which was erected between 1616 and 1625 by the Dutchman Jan van Valckenborgh in order to make the town impregnable. This site thus creates an obvious connection to the 17th century, which is presented as the golden era of Hamburg in the museum in detail.

If one stands at the Holstenwall one can see that the building consists of two blocks which meet at an angle: the part of the exhibition in the courtyard – since the construction of the roof it offers additional room for exhibitions, concerts and other events –and the administrative area. A garden terrace in front of the facade is decorated with parts of buildings which were saved from middle-class houses and statues of German emperors from the old town hall. Shape and size of the baroque merchant houses, which document wealth without copying the extravagance of the aristocratic houses determine the creation of the rooms.

The present valuable items on display at the museum go back to the activities of the society of Hamburg History (founded in 1839), which after the demolition of the Hamburg Dome and two monasteries, secured architectural fragments. Later, parts of houses destroyed in the great fire of 1842 were recovered. The rest of the antiquities followed, when in 1881 a whole district in the area of today‘s free harbour was demolished in favour of the Speicherstadt. Until 1892 the constantly growing collection was only accommodated temporarily and also after moving into the building of the museum, only a fraction is to be seen by the visitor today. Since then the collection has been continuously added to and has been improved in its presentation. Topics such as city development, harbour, every day life and culture are represented extensively and are vividly displayed by large-scale models, open-plan productions as well as a richness of archives and documents. The development of the individual parishes with their handcraft quarters is to be followed in the same way as the creation of the first factories; social and political conflicts, as in the „harbour and navigation“ department which documents the industrial world of the 19th century can not be left spared, especially in Hamburgs so important working class movement.