Every design for Hamburg

Few cities can count a group of islands out in the North Sea as one of their own districts, but Hamburg has Neuwerk. The Free and Hanseatic City still carries its trading past in its official name, and it has come back from a great fire, from bombing and from flood, each time ending up stronger than before.

The city sits where the Alster and the Bille meet the Elbe, at the start of the long estuary that runs out to the sea, with Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south. Its port is the largest in Germany, and daily life follows the water: ferries, canals, brick warehouses, the Rickmer Rickmers and the Cap San Diego moored at the quay, the Alsterfontäne throwing spray above the lake in the middle of town. For people who grew up here, the local Low Saxon dialect and the sound of the harbour are as much home as any street.

Then there is the Rathaus, grand and a little stern, the seat of a city that has always preferred to run its own affairs. Carry that building on your chest and you carry some of that stubborn, self-governing Hamburg spirit with you.