Hamburg’s philarmony cost 900 million euros to build. That’s an awful lot of money. Architects decide to spend on structure and texture instead of decor. And with today’s machines, we actually could make all these intricate details without human intervention.
Now the town basically has subsidized a hotel, a few luxury condos, some gastronomy, and got a few classic music venues which it could have gotten otherwise, and cheaper. Besides that it already had those before.
Furthermore I don't see the need to fake the look of this
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaispeicher_A#/media/Datei:Kai...
by totally removing the core of it, and putting that new thing on top, instead of simply tearing it down, and build something really new from the bottom up.
I mean, if it had been this building
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaispeicher_A#/media/Datei:Kai...
it would at least have had a history, including the timeball on top of it, which signalled the ships the exact time they could adjust their chronometers to at exact 12:00hrs.
But it wasn't. Just a functional building to store cocoa and coffee beans, built in 1963 over the ruin of the former building.
Was that worth to uphold the facade of? 798.000.000€ for the town, and about 100.000.000€ by some fanbois, and who knows who?
I don't get it.
"Das Wahrzeichen des Wahnsinns. Mors, Mors."
EDIT: Hmm, even the payer's power could be factored in. A king may be willing to spend 1/10th of his empire's wealth on an extravagant palace, but the same would likely not be approved in a democracy.