Hospital of the Holy Spirit
There are buildings that people recognise without ever having looked at them closely. The Holy Spirit Hospital on the Koberg is one such place – one of the oldest social institutions in the world, founded in 1227 and completed in 1286. It was endowed by Lübeck merchants, not entirely without self-interest: those who helped hoped for a place in paradise.
The three-gabled façade with its four slender turrets was, from the very beginning, a façade in the literal sense – a message to the outside world. Behind it, people slept, ate and died. Almost 90 metres long, the Lange Haus stretches through the interior with its wooden cabins, cell by cell, century by century.
At night, when the moon glows behind the outermost turret and a bicycle leans against the traffic sign, it all seems very close and very far away at the same time. The brick façade glows, the city sleeps, and the hospital stands – as it has for almost 800 years.
I took this photograph for GEO Epoche – thanks to the Holy Spirit Hospital and to almost 800 years of civic spirit in Lübeck.

























