The Historical Museum in Frankfurt
Architect: Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei Architekten
Location: Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Type: Museum
Year: 2017
Photography: Roland Halbe Architekturfotografie
The following description is courtesy of the architects. The Historical Museum in Frankfurt is one of the oldest institutions of its kind. It is located directly in the centre of the city, at the Römerberg and near the river Main. Until the 2010s, it was housed in an ensemble of historic buildings and in an annex building from the 1970s made of reinforced concrete. This more recent building had become unsuitable for further use due to technical problems concerning fire protection, escape routes, and contamination by harmful substances.
For this reason, the city held a competition for a new building with two primary goals: to make spatial improvements to the overall urban situation and to fulfil the specified museum requirements. After completion, the new exhibition building and the existing historic buildings will constitute a single entity.
As a first step, the old buildings were renovated by the office of Diezinger and Kramer, in order to accommodate the operations of the museum until completion of the supplemental new building.
The design for the extension envisions the creation of an urban plaza between the existing buildings and the additional exhibition spaces, delimited on its short sides by the so called Stauferbau and, at the other end, one of the few half-timbered buildings, the “Haus Wertheym”, that has been spared from wartime destruction. Under this plaza is the circulation level, a lower lobby, which gives access to the exhibition levels on four floors. A special feature of the building is its roofscape, which is composed of two contiguous gable roofs joined lengthwise.
A museum that deals with the history of the city should itself be an example of how the city can be further developed. This is primarily a matter of care and diligence, which can be used to successfully correct the reconstruction, who did not care about the history. Yet it is the special nature of the institution that is to be made visible, in a new and, at the same time, familiar way.
Project Details
Project Team
- Client: Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Dezernat VII-Kultur und Wissenschaft, Kulturamt, represented by the Hochbauamt Frankfurt am Main
- Architects: Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei Architekten, Stuttgart
- Project management: Hochbauamt Frankfurt am Main
- Structural engineering: Lenz Weber Ingenieure GmbH, Frankfurt am Main
- Controlling engineers: Werner Sobek Frankfurt GmbH & Co. KG, Frankfurt
- Structural physics: Bobran Ingenieure Akustik + Bauphysik, Stuttgart
- Fire protection planning: Halfkann + Kirchner, Frankfurt am Main
- Geotechnics: ISK Ingenieursgesellschaft mbH, Rodgau
- Engeneering for technical building facilities: ZWP Ingenieur AG, Wiesbaden
- Electrical engineering: Steinigeweg Planungs GmbH & Co KG, Darmstadt
- Lift planners: Beiersdorf Herzhauser Planung, Frankfurt
- Architects rebuilding the existing housing stock: DIEZINGER & KRAMER, Diezinger Architekten GmbH, Eichstätt
