Oldest preserved warehouse building in Hamburg’s Speicherstadt district
The International Maritime Museum is probably one of the best-known and largest museums in Hamburg – and not a state museum. Housed in the former Kaispeicher B warehouse since 2008, Peter Tamm Senior’s collection includes various objects relating to maritime shipping with tens of thousands of ship models. Kaispeicher B is located on the east side of the Speicherstadt – in contrast to Kaispeicher A, which today forms the base of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall. Built in 1878 as a grain silo, Kaispeicher B was converted into a ground storage facility as early as 1884.
Surrounded by water on two sides, goods could be loaded and unloaded from barges (flat boats) via Magdeburg harbor. If you look at the brick façade, you will immediately notice that this neo-Gothic style foreshadowed the Hanoverian school in which the entire Speicherstadt was later built.
The International Maritime Museum is being built
The relocation of Peter Tamm’s collection from the Elbchaussee to today’s HafenCity was not without controversy, but offered several advantages: the extensive collection found a new, larger home, which could now also be made accessible to the public, and at the same time the city of Hamburg was able to renovate and protect the warehouse, which had been in a state of disrepair for years, with the help of a mixture of taxpayers’ money and donations from various shipping companies. Since then, the operation of the museum has not been supported by the state, but has been successfully maintained by admission fees from visitors and volunteers in all areas.
Would you like to find out more about the museum and the Speicherstadt? Take a look at my Hamburg tours page or contact me directly for a customized tour.
