The dream of a city by the ocean. Ports all over the world

..."The ocean has been a magical attraction to mankind for ages and promises adventure and wakens wanderlust and supplies us with its rich harvest as well as a means of connecting continents. At the same time it is an unpredictable force of nature, which threatens mankinds livingspace. The apparent endlessness entices dreams of freedom and has, on the other hand, lead to dark myths of the next world.

Cities on the ocean unite this ambivalence between fascination and fear. Within them, nature and civilization meet one as nowhere else. The city by the ocean is an expression of a strong will, the element to take over control, to make it a subject for the goals of mankind. The aim of the project "The dream of the city by the ocean. Ports from all over the world", which presents a variety of different developments is to collect knowledge from the past and perspectives of the future to a kaleidoscope, which sharpens the look for the possibilites of the "City by the ocean". The articles in this volume....(from the preface) give an acount of the old myths and dreams, of the politicaly dictated plan of the foundation for St. Petersburg or of the current battle of the threat by the lagoon complex in Venice and of the mighty panorama which Genoa or Barcelona have to offer to the ocean, like the modern large-scale projects in Marseille or Shanghai.

Between the book covers, which equally symbolizes myth, threat and vision lies, among the individual articles of an international team of experts a treasure of predominantly coloured, wonderful illustrations, which give the catalogue a bibliophile character.

Publisher: Prof. Dr. Gisela Jaacks
Hamburg, Foundation of the Museum of Hamburg History, 2003
288 P, numerous coloured illustrations, 28,50 Euro
3-9809110-0-4