In order to see ourselves properly we all need to take a step or two back. This is just as true of a city as it is of its citizens. The most reliable way of achieving this is through images. They provide the setting for the perspective we want to be viewed from, and every major city does it in ways that differ only slightly. Hamburg has a preference for an image that conveys the authentic. Something that doesn’t sit all too well with HafenCity.

Does a city have a nature all of its own? Well, perhaps not in the way that a human being does. But towns and cities, especially large ones, certainly do have an image. But it can only be deliberately fashioned up to a point. Marketing measures, too, usually draw on the history of the city, its location, and on events jointly recalled. And whether you like it or not, the image thus created has an impact on the image you have of yourself as a denizen of that city. Cities and their residents are thus connected to one another, creating their own sense of belonging. And a sense of belonging is a scarce commodity inasmuch as no one knows for certain where to source it reliably. Plus you can hardly dispense with it, not without digging the ground out from under your feet. 
 
Image has become all the more important when it comes to creating identities, especially nowadays when conscious rituals and social relationships are perceived as far less binding than they used to be. The less we know about our city, the more important suggestive images become, which can be genuine bearers of knowledge while having a very immediate impact. It’s precisely what makes them so enticing as they render the state of not knowing invisible. Therein lies their escapable draw and the danger that poses, but also their significance when it comes to defining us as a common entity. Creative cultural output has a lot to do with renegotiating, time and again, the two levels and functions of the image: eye-catching surfaces on the one hand; on the other, concealed reasons and contexts. Art and culture counteract the sense of overpowering that tends to make us feel unfree; they do so by contributing to entertainment and education equally. This is essential when it comes to shaping the design of a city, knowing full well that the relationship between entertainment and education is in constant flux. Works of art in public space are always gateways, too, vectors of transition from one level of meaning to another. That’s important, because when meaning changes, it has a knock-on effect on everything else – even if we only come to realise it with hindsight. 

In studying how cities carve out their identity, sociologist Martina Löw carried out a small experiment based on an advertising medium that now seems almost quaintly old-fashioned, i.e. the postcard. She visited a city’s tourist sites and enquired about the best-selling postcards. She then showed these postcards to the citizens of the city in question, who selected the ones they thought were ‘most typical’. The results for Hamburg are no big surprise. While a city such as Frankfurt am Main likes to present itself as the continuity between the past and modernity through its architecture and some stunning illuminations, Munich showcases itself as a place charged with culture and tradition in harmony with its horizon backdrop of mountain landscapes, even if in terms of perspective the city appears rather overstated. Hamburg, the city that sees itself as a gateway to the world, prefers to look at itself from the water, i.e. from beyond the gate. The postcards feature many views taken from the water, usually the Inner or Outer Alster, with a few sailboats in the foreground and the silhouette of the city opening up beyond them. It’s a pictured scene you could verify with your own eyes at any time, which is not the case with other major cities. 
 
And it’s the picture of Hanseatic coolness: an aloof perspective on yourself and everything you call your own, which at the same time is the prerequisite of all that is cultivated, just as Romanticism would have it. This view from an outside vantage point suggests an observing neutrality: nothing here is staged; the picture depicts reality, and it’s authentic. 
 
Presumably, one of the difficulties that Hamburg has in accepting HafenCity as part of itself lies in this self-image gained from a distance. While Hamburg in its historical expansion toys merely selectively with the opposition of water and seafaring as an identity-affording factor, the new district of HafenCity intervenes at precisely the threshold that unquestioningly fulfils its role as a distancing boundary. At HafenCity, it is precisely the amalgamation aspect that is key, elevated as it is to the status of idea generator for architectural and urban planning measures: lanterns made to look like ship’s masts or dock cranes; buildings inspired by the architecture of ships and sails; or purposeless bollards designed to receive mooring ropes that will in fact never coil themselves around them: all of it caricatured authenticity. It takes away from this boundary precisely what it always aspired to be: a distinction that allows you to look more clearly at one’s self. The future will have to show how the city is able to deal with this irritation of the self-image of the genuine and non-histrionic. It, too, has always been a somewhat staged production, and it may well be that HafenCity will compel Hamburg to rethink this aspect long-term. 

In his philosophical miniatures, philosopher and curator Daniel Tyradellis took various constellations of people, objects, and places in HafenCity as his starting point for a reflection on urban living for the audio library of THE GATE (2021). These texts are published here exclusively for the first time. Chapter 2 will be published soon.