the world’s most
beautiful “village”.
When Matthias Schmidt is not creating advertisements for Opel, he is exploring his new home city, winner of the European Green Capital award, by bike.
At home in the village: Creative Director Matthias Schmidt moved from Berlin to Hamburg. He likes this “small” city.
For Matthias Schmidt, partner and creative director at the advertising agency Scholz & Friends, Hamburg, with its 1.8 million population, is the “world’s most beautiful village”. The 41-year-old, who moved from Berlin five years ago and whose agency has been responsible for Opel’s advertising since 2011, does not mean this in a bad way. Far from it. Schmidt appreciates the uncomplicated nature of the “Pearl of the Elbe” as he explains, “I live in Eimsbüttel, which is fairly central. I can reach all the main places in the city in 20 minutes by bike.”
Schmidt is tall and very fit, sometimes even jogging the six kilometres between his home and office. He also rides a 27-gear Opel mountain bike. “I certainly need it,” says Schmidt, who once worked as a cycle courier. He has worked out three routes to the office that take in various highlights of the city. The quickest takes him through the Schanze district, which is defined by alternative culture and cutting-edge media. It goes through St Pauli, on the other side of the red-light district, from the jetties along the Elbe to the port.
Historical port: the former free port’s warehouses are now offices for creative firms, with the new HafenCity built right next to them.
The most elegant route goes first through the Harvestehude and Rotherbaum districts. It then goes through the “Planten un Blomen” park, with its tropical house and Japanese garden, before running via the Opera House and City Hall towards the port. The most beautiful route bears north, heading in only one direction: always along the Alster. With broad meadows and 200-year-old oak trees, Japanese cherry blossom and Mediterranean almond trees on the one side, and weeping willows on the other.
All three routes end up on the Sandtor Quay in HafenCity, which is right next to the Elbe Philharmonic Hall and is still under construction. The Scholz & Friends agency is located here, in a modern building made of glass and brick. From his office, Schmidt, who, incidentally, can give a “camp-fire level” rendition on his guitar of Die Toten Hosen’s classic hit “Opel Gang”, can see across the port as far as Övelgönne Beach.
These three routes demonstrate great diversity. We have the Hamburg of the respectable businessmen and their grand offices, on the one hand, and that of the port area, on the other hand, where any request is more likely to be prefaced with “Hurry up!” rather than the polite Hanseatic “Could you perhaps…”. This is a city where alternative lifestyles are tried out and where cashmere fashions and huge 4x4s are greatly prized. We have the long-established Hamburger SV juxtaposed with FC St Pauli with its cool rock image, the lobster bars and pubs around the port, the cheeky call-girls and then the computer geeks who have made Hamburg an IT development centre. The Francophile Café Paris, located just across from the City Hall, even has Hamburg’s local specialty Labskaus (with potatoes and corned beef as its main ingredients) on the menu. These extreme opposites continue even in the street names: one is called “Below Average” and another “Great Place”.
This variety can pose a bit of a problem, at least for an advertiser who needs to make an impression in seconds. “The Top of the North” paints a chilly, even drizzly picture, although the number of hours of sunshine in Hamburg is well above the German average. “The Gateway to the World” is justified, given that Hamburg boasts Europe’s third largest port and is such a strong economic centre, but this also tends to be greeted by the tongue-in-cheek retort, “sure, but just its gateway.”
