Volkwin Marg – Hamburg Citizen of the Year 2020
Hamburg 1 TV station presents award to gmp founding partner
For the 22nd time, the Hamburg television station recognized citizens for their contributions to the Hanseatic City. Michael Schmidt, Managing Director of Hamburg 1, presented the Hamburg Citizen of the Year 2020 award in the “Lifetime Achievement” category to Volkwin Marg. With this award, the TV station pays tribute to his many years of commitment to the urban-planning traditions of the Hanseatic City.
“This year’s Lifetime Achievement award goes to Prof. Volkwin Marg (gmp Architekten). Throughout his career, he has shaped Hamburg’s cityscape with structures like the Hanseviertel, the Elbbrücken underground and rapid transit railway stations, the Zürichhaus, airport terminals, and the courtyard roofing of the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte. His ability to embrace the urban-planning tradition and history of a city and translate it into modern architecture and forward-looking concepts is outstanding. Marg developed the basic concept of the HafenCity, which laid the foundations for Europe’s largest inner city development project. Having chosen Hamburg as his home city, he is also responsible for numerous important architectural phenomena worldwide. A wide range of state-of-the-art stadiums and sports venues bear his signature. In addition to Volkwin Marg’s professional work, he is a keen advocate of the preservation of historic monuments.” Michael Schmidt, Managing Director, Hamburg 1 Television
In 1965, together with his student friend Meinhard von Gerkan, Volkwin Marg founded the architectural practice gmp von Gerkan, Marg and Partners Architects in Hamburg, which since then, from its base in Hamburg, has completed over 500 projects worldwide–in Europe, South America, Russia, India, Vietnam and China–including several stadiums, trade fairs, railway stations, and airports.
His expert report “Building near Water” (1973) documented previously unexploited opportunities in Hamburg for making beneficial use of its many waterways, including the banks of the Elbe, Bille, and Alster Rivers, as well as the basins and Fleet canals threatened with infilling, and the dilapidated port facilities that separated the city from the Elbe River. In 1980, Marg organized the forum of the associations of architects, landscape developers, and engineers in Stadersand to support the “Save the Lower Elbe Region” campaign in favor of a review of the regional plan of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein, the three authorities bordering the River Elbe, which had at that time planned many nuclear power plants as well as infill projects to create development land for industry. This campaign was enthusiastically taken up by the press and contributed to a more ecologically based approach.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Marg produced several expert reports in order to prevent the infilling of port basins and Fleet canals in the Speicherstadt, an issue that had become a controversy between City Planning and the Port Authority. The Chairman of the HHLA Board, Peter Dietrich, whom Marg recruited to the cause and who also valued a more harmonious port and urban landscape, met with Mayor Henning Voscherau for a confidential conversation with the goal of balancing the interests of both port and city. At great personal risk, they laid the foundations for the intended HafenCity urban development. The relocation of existing port operations and the abandonment of the Grasbrook coal-fired power plant required a realistic master plan concept, which Marg developed from his Chair in Aachen (“Geheimprojekt HafenCity”, Dölling und Galitz, 2017). The project was publicly introduced at the City Hall by Henning Voscherau on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Übersee Club on May 7th, 1997, in the presence of Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Republic. Since then, the construction of HafenCity has become an internationally renowned pilot project for the growing Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
In light of the current situation, the Hamburg 1 television station’s traditional gala attended by guests from politics, business, and the media was not held this year. Instead, the tribute took place on a smaller scale at the Hotel Atlantic Kempinski. In addition to Volkwin Marg, Joachim Kaiser of the Hamburg Maritim Foundation was also honored for his commitment to preserving the floating maritime heritage of the Hanseatic City and the Maritim Foundation. The two prizewinners are linked by friendship and by many years of working together for the sake of the city, water, and seafaring – from the founding of the Oevelgönne Museum Harbor to their commitment to the future Port Museum.
As an architect Volkwin Marg has contributed to the perception of Hamburg’s identity with his designs featuring North-German brick architecture. He was particularly keen on preserving Hamburg’s monuments. Today, four of his own buildings have already been listed as historic monuments.
+ Further information in the press kit +
