File:Das Chilehaus in Hamburg.jpg

English: Chilehaus, built 1922-1924, is located in the Counting House district (Kontorhausviertel) of Hamburg, near the city’s port. It was developed by Henry Brarens Sloman, a Hamburg businessman who made his fortune in Chile. This massive building was designed by local architect Fritz Höger and it is widely viewed as an architectural tour-de-force and influence on subsequent buildings inside and outside of Germany. Chilehaus is considered one of preeminent examples of both German Brick Expressionism (Backsteinexpressionismus) and German Art Deco. It also seems to anticipate the playfulness of Postmodern architecture in its massing which mimics a large cruise ship; appropriate enough for a building in a port area and a useful way of making the building’s bulkiness seem less monolithic. One corner of the building, not pictured in this view, resembles a ship’s prow, while the balconies and their railings visible here are said to resemble the upper decks of an ocean liner. Judged in its own era as an important achievement - for example in 1929 the Manchester Guardian contended that “the famous Chilehaus at Hamburg carries off its strangeness handsomely” - it is still seen as an icon. It is a listed monument locally and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Among its superlatives, it reportedly has 2,800 windows and 4.8 million bricks. This image is from Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 7 January 1925, page 1. Accessed via Digitale Landesbibliothek Berlin, which identifies this material as being in the Public Domain. See: https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/metadata/14688302_1925_002/1/