Empire Riverside Hotel

Customer: Empire Riverside GmbH & Co. KG
Construction period: 11.2005 – 11.2007
Location: St. Pauli, Hamburg
Country: Germany

An attraction for all visitors to Hamburg
In the heart of the famous St Pauli district of Hamburg, ALPINE Bau Deutschland was recently chosen to be the lead contractor in the construction of a four star hotel complex. The Empire Riverside Hotel, built over some 3,500 m², provides the area with a fascinating eye-catching piece of architecture and acts as a magnet
for guests visiting Hamburg from all over the world.

Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, the hotel itself ‘sits’ on a kind of plinth, which is four storeys high. This serves as an entrance hall and offers attractive conferencing facilities to its guests. On top of this rests the 17 storey tower which boasts 328 rooms and has a height of 73 metres.

The complex has three components – the hotel tower, the L shaped plinth and the remains of the Brewery building, which used to cover the whole site (and is now office space). The unity of these buildings has been created by using a façade of glass with a bronze casing.

The interior of the building – which has some 23,000 m² of useable space – has made use of more classic materials such as oak and walnut and has a beautiful black terrazzo floor with a reddishbrown marbled effect.

Construction of the basement utilised a so called “white tank” made of non-porous concrete (including the ceilings). ALPINE Bau developed a unique climbing formwork for the construction of the tower. The architect’s plans meant that the tower had to be constructed using reinforced concrete. Of particular interest is the façade construction which makes use of a post and beam system using bronze-coated glass.

Empire Riverside Hotel / Film