“Around the Michel”: NDR filming on “Hamburg’s largest roof garden”

8. April 2021

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Spring is starting in Hamburg, and “even the gray St. Pauli bunker will soon be blossoming”: A TV team from the NDR magazine “Rund um den Michel” (Around the Michel) has now dared to climb onto the growing bunker roof and shows the first breath-taking views of the Elbphilharmonie, Michel and harbor.

This spectacular view from “Hamburg’s largest roof garden” can soon be enjoyed by all citizens.

Until then, around 4,700 plants are waiting to be moved from the Lorenz von Ehren nursery to the bunker on Heiligengeistfeld. In view of the enormous dimensions of the newly created public city garden, the first preparations of the apple trees, pines and large shrubs, some of which are already meters high, are already beginning.

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At a height of 58 meters, the plants will soon have to withstand different weather conditions such as heat, frost and wind. Particularly suitable, therefore, are woody plants whose original home is in northern Europe or in the mountains and which “grow broader and stockier,” explains landscape architect Felix Holzapfel-Herziger, who is planning the planting and has to take into account the special features of this unique location. “You can imagine it a bit like on the North Sea or Baltic Sea, where the plants protect each other from the wind and grow into each other.” For the Hamburg native, whose planning office is located in the immediate vicinity of the bunker, planting and pacifying the mighty gray concrete colossus from World War II is a matter of the heart: “This is the landscape of the future. Green is always good for you.”

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The four-minute feature “Rund um den Michel” (Around the Michel) about the unique greening of the St. Pauli bunker is shown by NDR in its media library:

https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/rund_um_den_michel/Bunker-begruenen-Baustelle-der-Zukunft,rundumdenmichel3388.html

Text/Photo: Frank Schulze Kommunikation