The Warburg Ensemble tells a complex story – one of a city ready to expand into its surrounding areas, one of flourishing Jewish bourgeois life, torn apart half a century later in fascist Germany.

It is a story that builds the bridge from a romantic revolutionary to a banker and politician. The address used to be Klopstockstraße, named after Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, a poet and pietist’s son who died in Hamburg in 1803. Today, the street refers to Max Moritz Warburg, who was born in Hamburg in 1867 and had to emigrate to the US in 1938 fleeing Nazi persecution. He died in 1946 in New York. His brother was the art historian Aby Warburg. The Warburg Institute in Hamburg and London are important institutions to this day.

The neighborhood is called Harvestehude-Rotherbaum, originally located in front of the city’s gates. During the 19th century, the summer homes and garden houses that had been built in this area were gradually replaced by stately mansions. The nearest city gate was the Dammtor, today one of the three major train stations of Hamburg. As of 1860, the gate was no longer closed at night, after which the settlement took off.

Many Jewish citizens chose to build their houses in this suburb. It was the Gründerzeit, the time before and after foundation of the German Kaiserreich under the guidance of Otto von Bismarck in 1871. Wealth, power and ambition all mix with the nascent bourgeois lifestyle of an aspiring middle-class to form this neighborhood of Hamburg which became part of the city in 1894.

The townhouses comprising the Warburg Ensemble were built between the end of the 1860s and 1870s. A garden stretches across its backyard. Around the corner is the Außenalster, Hamburg’s lake within the city, today a hub for after-work sailors and joggers.

The central house is the Haller Building at Warburgstraße 18, constructed by the Hamburg architect Martin Haller in the early 1870s. It was of residential use, the first owner being William Henry O’Swald, a senator, trader and deputy mayor of the city. Other owners include Adolph Godeffroy, one of the founders of global shipping company Hapag.

After the war, many of the buildings became home to offices, diplomatic services, a dancing school and a book shop. The character of the street shifted together with the city’s neighborhood, becoming less residential and increasingly commercial.