Valentin's Letter

Fall | Winter 2021

Dear Friends, 

I remember the summer before the construction of the Elbphilharmonie on Kaispeicher A got started.  

A few creative guys used the old warehouse as a temporary club, the Rangavilas: long corridors with torches, columns and walls drawn from centuries of a warehouse. A wood-panelled sun terrace right on the water, a swimming pool in the middle of it, the huge storage rooms all in white, filled with a colourful crowd to marvel at, a crazy sound everywhere. A mixture of the South of France, London and Miami. Hamburg has not seen a club like this since.  

Today, the Elbphilharmonie car park has taken over these halls. We were allowed to photograph our new campaign here during the lockdown. A completely different atmosphere: the empty car park, so surreal, you can hear the click of the camera very loudly. Everything perfectly clean, no more traces, more like a modern art museum. Solid and pure, the foundation for the drifting philharmonic hall above. In a few days it will finally start up there again. Thank God!  

But in my head, in the empty car park, there are still beats playing from the Rangavilas, from that fairytale summer. That's how exciting our city is.