About this place
Completed in 1924 to designs by the architect Fritz Hoeger, the Chilehaus is the masterpiece of Hamburg's Brick Expressionism and the centrepiece of the Kontorhaus district, the purpose built office quarter that today forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Speicherstadt. It was commissioned by Henry Brarens Sloman, a merchant who had grown wealthy trading saltpeter from Chile, which gave the building its name. Some four thousand craftsmen laid roughly 4.8 million dark Oldenburg clinker bricks during the desperate inflation years, shaping ten storeys that taper to a knife edge corner where two streets converge. Yet the building cannot be read as beauty alone. Hoeger joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and dismissed a Jewish colleague from his studio; across this same quarter, buildings and streets bearing Jewish names were later erased by the regime. And when Operation Gomorrah reduced much of central Hamburg to ash in July 1943, the Chilehaus stood, an unlikely survivor above a burning city.
Key facts
- 4.8 million bricks — Dark Oldenburg clinker bricks were laid to build the facade
- 1924 year — The Chilehaus was completed to designs by Fritz Hoeger
- 2015 year — Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site within the Kontorhaus district
📍 Fischertwiete 1, 20095, Hamburg