Ottensen

This guide to Ottensen in Hamburg centers on a former machine works built by Hespe and Lembach in 1899, when this district was a booming factory quarter whose population multiplied roughly fifteen times over in half a century. It follows the neighborhood's collapse after the Second World War, when factory after factory went bankrupt, and the 1971 moment when a painter and an architect walked into this empty hall and turned it into the Fabrik, one of Germany's first culture and communication centers. You'll hear about the fire that gutted the building in 1977 and the rebuild that followed. Look up at the entrance and you can still see the old factory crane hanging over it, doing no work now.