Chilehaus

The Chilehaus in Hamburg is one of Germany's most famous office buildings and a landmark of brick expressionism. Its dark clinker walls form a sharp point at the eastern corner that looks like the bow of a ship. It has been part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2015. There is no ticket to buy: this is a building to walk around, photograph and admire from the street, and it makes an easy stop on a day in Hamburg's Old Town.

A building with a story

The Chilehaus was built between 1922 and 1924 to a design by architect Fritz Höger. The client was merchant Henry B. Sloman, who made his fortune trading Chilean saltpeter. After 32 years of working in South America, he named the building after Chile. Construction began on May 14, 1922, and the finished building was handed over in February 1924.

The facade is made of Bockhorn clinker bricks. Höger said he used rough, rejected bricks on purpose, though that does not mean actual waste was used. The building rests on reinforced-concrete piles up to 16 meters long, about 18,000 meters in total. The cost was around 10 million Reichsmark, though inflation and the currency reform make an exact figure impossible. It has been a listed monument since 1983.

What to see

The building has nine to ten floors, with the upper levels stepped back. It covers about 36,000 square meters of floor space on a footprint of 5,950 square meters.

• The eastern tip: The classic view is from the east, where the narrow corner juts out like a ship's bow. This is where most photos are taken.
• All around the block: The Chilehaus sits between the streets Niedernstraße, Burchardstraße, Pumpen, Klingberg and Depenau, and every side shows different brickwork details.
• The courtyard: The street Fischertwiete passes under a bridge-like link between two parts of the building. Two staircases lead from the quiet courtyard into the building. Because most offices are rented, access to the interior is not guaranteed; the courtyards can be explored.
• World Heritage Info Point: An info point about the World Heritage Site is located inside. Sources disagree on its opening hours, so check before you go.

Today the ground floor holds a Manufactum store and a C. Bechstein piano showroom.

UNESCO and the wider context

On July 5, 2015, UNESCO inscribed the Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with Chilehaus on the World Heritage List. The Chilehaus is the best-known piece of the Kontorhaus District, a quarter of large brick office buildings built for trading companies.

Tickets and opening hours (as of October 2026)

You do not pay anything to see the facade and the publicly accessible courtyards, and no reliable source gives fixed courtyard hours. House numbers vary by source (Fischertwiete 1 for the info point, Fischertwiete 2 on tourism and map sites). For navigation, search for Chilehaus and postcode 20095.

How to get there

The Chilehaus is at Fischertwiete 2, 20095 Hamburg, in the Old Town. The closest U-Bahn station is Meßberg (line U1). The Hamburg CARD (from 12.90 euros) includes travel on city buses, trains and harbor ferries. Allow 30 to 45 minutes for a visit; this is our estimate, not an official figure. Self-guided audio tours of the Kontorhaus District that include the building are available, but we could not confirm official guided tours of the house itself.

Nearby

The Speicherstadt warehouse district is within walking distance, and the Chocoversum chocolate museum is a few minutes away on foot. The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, a design and applied-arts museum, is near the main station, and the Sprinkenhof is another brick office building in the Kontorhaus District.