Sprinkenhof

This guide to Sprinkenhof in Hamburg opens with a question about the gulls, coats of arms and ships pressed into the terracotta above you, carved in the 1920s by Ludwig Kunstmann to watch over the harbor trade. It follows the three architects who raised the building starting in 1927, Fritz Hoeger and the brothers Hans and Oskar Gerson, on a lane once owned by a blacksmith named Johann Sprink. You'll hear how Hans Gerson died mid-build in 1931, and how new laws in 1933 stripped Oskar of the right to practice architecture because he was Jewish, leaving Hoeger to finish the final wing alone during the war. Look up at the brickwork and count how many birds and ships you can find worked into it.