Next
Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)

Don Barrett (aka DBs travels) club

Posted: 17 Jul 2015

Taken: 02 May 2015

1 favorite     3 comments    254 visits

Location

Lat, Lng:  
You can copy the above to your favourite mapping app.
Address:  unknown

 View on map

See also...

Keywords

architecture •
harbour •
Germany •
Hamburg •
GerPol15 •

Authorizations, license

Visible by: Everyone
Attribution + non Commercial + no derivative
254 visits

Hamburg Ballie/Meßberghof (#0003)

Hamburg Ballie/Meßberghof (#0003)
The available sources on this building next to Chilehaus were confusing. The Wikipedia page, in German, indicates that the building was constructed from 1922 to 1924 and was called the Balli house for Albert Ballin, the founder of HAPAG shipping line (now HAPAG-Lloyd). Since Ballin was Jewish, the building was renamed in 1938 for the nearby road, Meßberghof.

The confusion is about the statues. The reason I took the picture was the statues that are above the ground floor and continue around the building (see adjacent picture). Per the UNESCO site (below), the statues were by Ludwig Kunstmann, are of Elbe sandstone, and were designed when the building was built. The doesn't seem to describe the statues that were my focus. Per the Wikimedia page the figures are by Lothar Fischer who was not born until 1933, after the building was finished. I could not find an English-language page to verify this about Fischer, but other works by him suggest that the statues are by him.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meßberghof
whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1367
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kontorhausviertel

kiiti has particularly liked this photo

Comments
 ୱ Kiezkickerde ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
ୱ Kiezkickerde ( ͡°… club
Well, WikiPedia is telling what I know about it... and what the city cultural history organisation also told. The german wikipedia tells the sculptures are made between 1996-97, and this sounds logical because it's the same timeframe in which the plate was installed informing about the company which made the zyclon B for the concentration camps. During this time there are some rumour and discussions about this building which I remembering and I couldn't swear it, but it doesn't seem inpossible the sculptures are installed at the same time during this discussions about the plate.
8 years ago.
 Clint
Clint
These statues don't look anything like sandstone in your photos, though the pedestals they're standing on could be. I'd guess they were copper. I suspect UNESCO has gone wrong somewhere and has missed a change, and that Kiezkickerde has the real story.
8 years ago. Edited 8 years ago.
Don Barrett (aka DBs… club has replied to Clint
I suspect that the story is difficult to follow because of the company background. I recall coming across something like what Kiezkickerde mentions about a relationship of the company to the death camps.
8 years ago.

Sign-in to write a comment.