Elbchaussee

Elbchaussee is best known for its many stately homes and villas, framed by ancient trees and lush parks and gardens. Developed as a residential road in the 18th century, at times also center of a local recreational area, Elbchaussee today is still home to many of Hamburg's finest residences, restaurants and hotels. At a length of 8.6 kilometers (5.3 miles) and a traffic volume of 40,000 cars per day, it also covers functions as a local collector road and one of Hamburg's arterial roads.

History

Since the time after the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the area had a few country estates and summer retreats connected by a bumpy country lane. During the second half of the 18th century, with more Hamburg grand burghers, wealthy merchants and ship-owners establishing their homes along the Elbe shore, Elbchaussee became a fashionable residential address. Around 1780, and on private initiative, the street was enhanced as a chaussée and managed as an exclusive toll road.

The years between 1790 and 1840 saw a building boom on Elbchaussee. Villas and country houses from those years are identifiable by being named after the respective commissioning Hanseatic first families, and many of them likened to Royal residences. Typical for late 18th-century and early 19th-century European architecture, most of them were built in Neoclassical or Biedermeier style, surrounded by parks often inspired by English landscape design. During the Gründerzeit years (ca. 1871–1900), other building styles were also applied, including various Revival styles, Art Deco and Art Nouveau (Jugendstil).

With completion of modern infrastructure projects in the second half of the 19th century, the Elbchausee became popular as a local recreational area. On weekends and bank holidays, the new railway, tram and ferry lines brought large crowds to the Elbchaussee and its beaches. In the 1890s the management of the promenade was transferred to municipal authorities.

The Elbe suburbs were merged into the town of Altona in 1927, which in turn was merged into the city of Hamburg in 1937. As recent as 1950, a renaming of the eastern half was carried out. Despite forming a unity in terms of both traffic and a landscaped urban space all along, the street's eastern half was until then called "Flottbecker Chaussee" or "Flottbeker Chaussee", only the western half "Elbchaussee". Since the 1990s a number of villas of the fin de siècle have been replaced by high end apartment buildings, mainly New Classical or Modern architecture.