OTTO LINNE PREIS - luchterhandt

“By the Alster, by
the Elbe, by the Bill,
everyone can do just
whatever he will.
That is the refrain of a Low German folk song from
Hamburg.
The rhyme contains two core messages:
Hamburg lies on three rivers! The third, the Bille,
is barely recognizable as a river, at least not in the
review area.
In the past, people did do whatever they wanted
with and around the Bille, most alterations being
dictated by the demands of trade and industry.
Towards the objective of re-casting the Bille as being, as it were, part of a “Gateway to the City” the following impressions
need to be countered:
• The natural scenery of the Bille is no longer recognizable. But it still, as in the past, flows
through Hammerbrook (brook is a Low German word for the low-lying area surrounding
water), in front of the northern Horner Geest. The Bille is used mostly for transportation or for
supplying trade and industrial sites from the water.
• Very few parts of its banks still offer public access and can be used for leisure pursuits.
The space is characterized and dominated by roads, most of them several lanes wide, traffic intersections
and the mainline railway.
Currently a green space corridor is being developed from the north along the side of the flood control basin. However
there is no bridge over the Bille apart from on the roads.
An important part of the riverbank where the flood control basin empties into the Bille is occupied by the recycling
centre and thus closed to the public. There is considerable noise nuisance.
Note:
The green finger along the flood control basin on the northern edge used to be a park; called the “Stoltenpark”, it
was laid out in 1920 by Hamburg’s director of gardens Otto Linne and until the night bombing raids in the 2nd World
War was a recreation spot for the residents of the housing areas then situated to the east.”
Dieter Schramm, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gartenkunst und Landschaftskultur e.V. Hamburg / Schleswig-Holstein section (German society for gardens
and landscapes)