Guest post by Günter Warsewa*
Maritime Heritage and the Harbour Tavern
When thinking about maritime heritage, it is often about those obvious symbols, artefacts and behaviours we can perceive directly on the surface: The specialised architecture of sheds and storehouses, the nostalgic silhouettes of ships and cranes, folkloristic festivities etc. But, moreover heritage is always an expression of collectively shared meanings, expectations, norms and values characterising the particular culture of a certain locality or community. In the case of maritime heritage it is closely related to the port citys’ specialised functions, eco-nomic and social structures. The particular maritime character of culture is therefore the basis and the expression of a particular collective identification and local identity and determines thinking, understanding, communicating and decision making. Both, the ensemble of tangible symbols and artefacts as well as the intangible framework of shared conventions, attitudes and expectations and its underlying values are changeable in time, sometimes adapt to new dynamics and switch to new forms and/or meanings.
The Golden City Hafenbar by the head of the Europahafen in Bremen 2017