Alte Harburger Elbbrücke Hamburg by Danny Verhalle

About "Alte Harburger Elbbrücke Hamburg"

by Danny Verhalle

About the artwork

The Old Harburg Elbe Bridge is a steel arch bridge that connects the Hamburg boroughs of Harburg and Wilhelmsburg over the South Elbe.

The basis for its construction was a contract between the Prussian province of Hanover and Hamburg. MAN Gustavsburg built the bridge from April 1897, and the construction was supervised by Strombaudirektor Georg Narten.[1][2] The design of the portals, erected of porta sandstone, was by the Hanoverian architect Hubert Stier, who had designed, among other things, the City Hall (Palacio Municipal) of La Plata (Argentina) and the station buildings in Bremen, Hanover and Harburg. With the coats of arms Wilhelmsburg and Harburg were intended to resemble city gates and were formerly decorated with the imperial eagle.

The bridge was opened on September 30, 1899. It connected the then Prussian towns of Harburg and Wilhelmsburg and was originally built for pedestrians and carriages. The 474 m long steel arch bridge was the first road bridge over the Süderelbe and also served the streetcar between Hamburg and Harburg until the early 1970s. Today it is used only by pedestrians and cyclists; car traffic now travels over the parallel June 17 bridge (until 1964 the New Harburg Elbe Bridge) and the Europabrücke.

Originally, the paths for pedestrians and cyclists ran along the outside of the bridge, but these were demolished in the course of a fundamental renovation between 1980 and 1995. The former course of the streetcar tracks can still be seen in the pavement near the south portal.