The Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg (International Maritime Museum) is a private museum in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg. The museum houses Peter Tamm‘s collection of model ships, construction plans, uniforms, and maritime art, amounting to over 40,000 items and more than one million photographs of the former “Wissenschaftliches Institut für Schifffahrts- und Marinegeschichte” (Academic Institute of Shipping and Naval History). It opened in a former warehouse in 2008.
The Kaispeicher B (quay warehouse B) is the oldest preserved warehouse in Hamburg, built in 1878 and 1879 by the architects Bernhard Georg Jacob Hanssen and Wilhelm Emil Meerwein. It was built with a supporting structure of wood and steel columns, the outer walls of bricks also supporting the building. It was designed in neo-Gothic style. Constructed and used as a combination of a grain elevator and for ground storage for packaged goods. In 1890 the city of Hamburg bought the warehouse, which has been called Kaispeicher B ever since. In 2000 it was listed as a cultural heritage building but used as a warehouse for goods until the end of 2003. In 2008 the museum was opened after a period of renovation. Mirjana Marcovic (MRLV Architekten) planned the renovations and received an award from the Architekten- und Ingenieurverein Hamburg. The bridge crossing the Brocktorhafen—a steel construction of 80 t (79 long tons; 88 short tons) in the shape of a boomerang with a length of 60 m (200 ft)—by architect Dietmar Feichtinger (Paris) and WTM Engineers (Hamburg) also received an award in 2008.
The walkabout starts with a 3,000-year-old dugout, which was found in the Elbe river. Further the exhibition consists of paintings with a naval or marine theme, model ships made of whale bones or ivory, weapons, uniforms, and decorations. Also the reproduction of the James Caird, the small lifeboat of Sir Ernest Shackleton‘s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, used by the German explorer Arved Fuchs in a relived journey in 2000, is displayed. The museum’s archive also possesses 47 original letters of Lord Horatio Nelson, famous for his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and 15,000 cruise ship menus. The collection shows more than 36,000 items on 12,000 m² (130,000 sq ft):
10th floor: Cultural Forum “10th Longitude”, special exhibitions
9th floor: The big world of ship models, water sports
8th floor: Maritime Art (art gallery and “treasure trove”)
7th floor: marine research, energy and fisheries
6th floor: merchant shipping, cruise and ports
5th floor: navies of the world (from 1815 to present)
4th floor: life on naval vessels, ship’s armament
3rd floor: The development of shipbuilding and engineering
2nd floor: sailing ships – from antiquity to the Hanse Sail, Cape Horniers and piracy
1st floor: explorers, navigation, communications and children’s area
Ground floor: foyer, reception area, restaurant and museum shop
In addition to the permanent exhibition, the museum also has presented several special shows including, for example, one about the Vikings.
