It is free to get onto the platform between the brick and glass building.

The brick building part is actually the remains of an old port warehouse for bananas or cocoa or something. The whole quarter, Speicherstadt (Storage City), is an expensive redevelopment of a pre-container age port.

Hey, check out this 2€ coin I am holding on to:

The damn Elbphilharmonie had to be renovated after just nine months. One of the other modern German mourning projects that cost the taxpayer vast sums.