HafenCity Hamburg

These photographs show the development of the first construction phase of the so-called “HafenCity” Hamburg. Here, between the harbour and the historic warehouses at the Elbe river, a new residential, work and leisure district is being built on an area of 157 hectares and will be completed in 2025. This unique project fascinated me from the very beginning: This impressive construction site with cranes, excavators, scaffoldings as far as the eye can see, dust, noise, bustle wherever you go. At first glance, this densely built-up space appears irritating, chaotic and partly surreal, but if you spend a longer period of time in one place, structures and order become recognizable. A gigantic gear train in which everyone and everything has a fixed function and contributes to the overall work. It appealed to me to capture these different perceptions with my camera. I concentrated on playing with imaginary and real spaces and included the everywhere present pictures on building banners and advertising posters in my work. In these pictures mostly drawings are to be seen, which show the currently unfinished buildings in their planned final state; illusions of the future. The fictional objects and spaces are arranged in such a way that they merge with spaces and objects from reality. The viewing eye jumps back and forth between the different levels, detaches objects from the concrete space and finally composes a new picture.