Die Renaissance einer Stadt is Amanda Harlech’s photographic encounter with Hamburg over two misty days in November 2017. Harlech’s emphasis is on silvery atmospheric effects, shifting grades of light and graphic patterns – be it in pictures from a boat ride on the Elbe through the industrial port or past the terraces of Blankenese, from a wander around the red-brick warehouses of the old Speicherstadt, or in reflections of colonnades near the Inner Alster Lake.

With a layout inspired by Jakob Tuggener’s Im Hafen von Antwerpen und Rotterdam of 1953 and metallic inks reminiscent of Baron de Meyer’s prints, this book is a lyrical, unconventional portrait of a city and its harbour.

Harlech’s photographic exploration began and ended at the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg’s striking concert hall with Herzog & de Meuron’s futuristic glass structure upon a pre-existing warehouse – a leitmotif throughout the book that herald’s the cultural rebirth of the city.