ABSTRACT
Shipping enabled imperialism like no other domain, enabling trade, communication, and migration between metropoles and colonies as technological innovations cut travel times, especially the harnessing of steam power. In European port cities, the infrastructure of docks and warehouses and the offices of shipping lines formed the tangible reminders of imperial shipping. Shipping lines used their offices not only for the management of their operations but also to underline the luxury and reliability of their services to prospective passengers. The first office of the German shipping line HAPAG in Hamburg (1899–1903) exemplified this pattern. Soon, however, a major overhaul (1912–1920), necessitated by the line’s rapid growth, transformed the building into an imposing office that mediated HAPAG’s status as an ‘imperial’ firm.
