The story of Elbphilharmonie

Look up at the glass wave resting on an old brick warehouse: some people see a hoisted sail, others a water wave, an iceberg or a quartz crystal. The base is Kaispeicher A, a former warehouse whose brick facade was kept, and on top sits a glassy structure with a wavy roofline, reaching 108 metres, the tallest inhabited building in Hamburg.

It all began as a private initiative by the architect and developer Alexander Gérard and his wife Jana Marko, with a design by Herzog & de Meuron. The road was long and costly: in 2007 it was expected to cost 241 million euros, but construction finally ended in 2016 at 866 million.

A curved escalator carries you up to the Plaza on the 8th floor, a public deck with a view of Hamburg and the Elbe. The Great Concert Hall seats 2,100 people around the performers, and Yasuhisa Toyota fitted about 10,000 individually shaped panels to spread the sound.