On behalf of the long-standing transport and shipping company Hamburg Süd, the existing listed building designed by Professor Cäsar Pinnau in the 1960s has been extensively refurbished and extended with a new seven-storey office building and a two-storey underground car park with around 120 parking spaces. This task required new floor plan and detailed solutions to comply with modern building and safety regulations. The headquarters of the long-standing shipping company Hamburg Süd was one of the first high-rise buildings in Germany to feature a glass curtain wall and can be seen as an homage to the world-renowned Seagram Building in New York designed by the architect Mies van der Rohe. Although the high-rise building constructed in 1964 has listed status, the existing façade has been completely removed and replaced with a new one. The tower has been stripped back to its loadbearing structure and structurally reinforced. Since the new twin-wall façade extended the width of the high-rise building, another storey has been added on top of the tower. This not only restored the old proportions, but also created valuable additional office space. The façade design is modelled on the proportions of the original façade in order to preserve the elegant aesthetics of the original building designed by Cäsar Pinnau.

Source: City profile magazine, issue Hamburg

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