multi-family settlement ( built somewhen between 1927 & 1928 ) along ludwig-landmann-straße.
when you think of frankfurt, what comes to mind immediately, is always the skyline with its tall skyscrapers, a city made out of glass and shiny facades. but did you know that frankfurt is not only known for these pure embodiments of capitalism, but also as a place in which modern architecture as we know it today was established? y'all heard of bauhaus already ( one of my alltime favourite architectural styles ), which is germany's answer to the new objectivity movement that started to bloom between 1920 and 1930 - a building style that shifted away from maximalism, historism and monumentalism to the complete opposite - minimalist design, functional architecture, built under socialist aspects, considering the bad economy of that era, trying to fulfill the huge demand of housing space after world war 1.
what walter gropius did with his bauhaus-concept was simply just that, creating a concept and teaching it to many upcoming architects and designers, setting up an academical practice, while in frankfurt all these newly learned accomplishments actually were implemented in practice by ernst may. bauhaus and new objectivity are closely related, and i would even say that one cannot be without the other. the difference between frankfurt's new objectivity and bauhaus, though, is very simple. bauhaus design was more catered to high-quality materials and some would even say more luxurious tastes ( though that is likely to be debated, since in theory, they too, were committed to offering affordable and functional architecture and design ), while the architectural school that was implemented in frankfurt actually catered to low-cost materials, quick construction phases and simple, down-to-earth requirements fulfilled for the masses.
main actor and leading figure in the 'new frankfurt' scene was the architect ernst may, who was the city's planner from 1925 to 1930. he developed 12.000 appartments within several settlements throughout the city - one of them being the settlement praunheim, which i visited on this very grey january day. it is, i think, the biggest settlement of the 10 taller settlements realized throughout the city, with a total of about 1440 appartments. the projects were heavily inspired by england's garden city movement, alloting gardens and roof terraces to many of the appartments and houses, leaving green public spaces throughout the entire structure. the appartments were often very small, but designed in such a way that every little inch was used wisely and to their full potential. one big component in the furnishings of the appartments was the 'frankfurt kitchen' - the very first fitted kitchen ever developed - and by a woman, too! margarete schütte-lihotzky will forever be the name associated with these kitchens, which were implemented in almost all of the appartments and designed to simplify and ease the workload of a typical german hausfrau - minimizing steps by building in quick and easy work stations to unfold or including built-in storage units.
as frankfurt is still in many places a white space to me that wants to be explored and discovered, i thought it was about time to check out a district that might interest me. the terms 'neues bauen' and 'neues frankfurt' had already often crossed my path on my quest to learn about architectural styles from the early 20th century, and the name ernst may had also popped up many times even in relation to wiesbaden, where he also built some settlements during the 1950ies. researching his work and finding out that new objectivity has close ties with the bauhaus movement finally peaked my interest so much that i started to fall into a deep rabbit hole that was not easy to leave anymore. i wanted to see and learn more and deepen my love for this exceptional architectural movement. and so i decided to make a list of frankfurt settlements i wanted to visit that had to do with this particular era and it so happened that praunheim was the first on that very list. unfortunately it's also been the only settlement on this list i have visited so far, which is a shame and should be redeemed very soon. i am currently eyeing the 'römerstadt' settlement, which seems to be a lot more landscaped into the environment than praunheim, with views towards the nidda river and looking a bit like a medieval city with terraced and bastion-like zoning walls.
but frankfurt wouldn't be frankfurt if you would not stumble upon other secrets, too, one of which for me was the random discovery of the mourning hall on the westhausen cemetery, which is very close nearby praunheim settlement ( and between, westhausen is another settlement built by ernst may and his colleagues as well ). i'll write more about this exceptional building when we get to it, but first, let's try to get a feeling for ernst may's oldest new frankfurt project!
the multi-family housings on ludwig-landmann-straße are forming a big entree to the whole settlement - which is both situated east and west of the big street. these houses are typical representatives of new objectivity and bauhaus - they are called 'laubenganghäuser' - balcony access houses - as you enter the flats via a long porch balcony. while these buildings look quite dreary on my photos, i especially liked one detail about them - the plants ranking upwards the facade and the balconies, attenuating the rather minimalist and unornamental look.
looking back down the street towards the balcony access houses before moving on to walking down heerstraße.
the buildings on heerstraße were 2-family-homes paired in duplexes, which basically made them 4-family-homes. these were also renovated to resemble the original colour scheme given to them in the 1920ies, which over the years was given up in the whole settlement - which is a wild assortment of colourful facades now. what really surprised me about many of these houses was the fact that they weren't big at all! i would've loved to have a peek inside to really get a feeling of how small they were and how the whole interior was utilized. seems like these houses could very well be pioneers of today's tiny house movement.
yellow for example was not supposed to be part of the colour concept ( developed by hans leistikow ) in praunheim ( only white, blue and red were supposed to be used throughout the whole settlement ), but seeing as human beings do not want to adhere to uniformity but love being individual beings, this colour concept was quickly thrown into the wind over the coming decades. many buildings also lost their initial look due to changes and additions that were made by the many home owners over time. so it was especially nice to see that some new home owners these days want to at least return to keeping the basics visible and not alter or modify these houses after renovations too much.
the small tiny windows on the housefronts were really intriguing to me as they sort of provide a shelter from prying neighboring eyes. i also loved how the entrance door is building such a unit with the three smaller windows.
here's some modified houses with added porch verandas ( many houses had these and they felt more like a mid-century addition than an original element ). it's important to know that the width of these small houses varied between 4,26 and 6 meters, which is very, very narrow! again, this fact is super fascinating to me, as i would love to know how people actually used the space within these homes.
when you research online you occasionally stumble upon remodelled and renovated houses and only then you suddenly get a feeling of how tight everything is, but also how charming living in a tiny space can be! but also, i can totally see why some people are not very much into the whole concept, especially these days when people all want to retreat into their private spaces without anyone else intervening. apparently the house walls between the homes are very thin and the little space can very much be a hindrance, too, especially when you think about old or handicapped people. for people who want to grow big families or even with only 1 child it also can be very claustrophobic. but for a single person like me or a couple without the wish to have children, these tiny homes might be attractive. and some people also dig close-knit and friendly neighborhoods which was something you could sense just by meeting people on the street and how they interacted with each other.
i really couldn't get over how narrow these duplex halves were!
some random old garages i found on my way to westhausen cemetery.
arriving in the cemetery i first did not grasp how special it was, it was only when i had already walked 10 minutes into it that i finally realized what a gem i had just stumbled upon. the cemetery itself is actually rather unremarkable, it's big, it has wide fields and a gravesite for italian world war 2 victims, but that's basically the most important details you will find until you come upon the mourning hall.
and this mourning hall made my heart beat wildly, upon sight!
and imagine my joy when i learned that it got built with help by one of my favourite sculptors: otto herbert hajek! he designed such feasts for the eye such as the königstein spa or the st. mauritius church close to my work space here in wiesbaden. his abstract and often very colourful work stands out usually but here, with this mourning hall, his handprints are less visible and you'll have to look more closely to find his characteristic handwriting. you'll discover it, though, within the concrete reliefs and the abstract layout and decorational elements used.
the hall's actual architect was günther bock, though, he built it in 1960, 8 years after the cemetery was inaugurated. the concrete structure is a wonderful and enticing example of art brut, or brutalist architecture, which is another style very close to my heart, especially when it is incorporated into a place of memory, of finding respite or relief. cemeteries usually are places of nature, too, here in germany, so that means that buildings like these are in a way creating some kind of symbiosis with its surroundings. in this case the mourning hall was embedded into the beautiful green space surrounding it, as a companion for mourners burying and saying goodbye to their loved ones.
for many people brutalist buildings are an unsightly thing, they are viewed as cold and ugly, as soulless and without charm. a lot of them will always have to face the risk of getting torn down, unless some famous figure designed them and it would be an atrocity against their creative legacy. i have encountered many brutalist buildings, many of them always had some kind of forlorn, almost forgotten air to them. and that was always exactly what drew me in. i find that brutalism is at its best when it is surrounded by greenery, the combination of lush growth on grey withering stone, or even just the existence of lichen growing on the concrete, it helps turn a building into a completely new organism.
one of the mourning spaces inside the building.
i loved the chairs so much! very straightforward and chic!
slowly revealing more of the structure and getting a feeling of the folded roof situation.
close-up of the fruit. i think it was some sort of crabapple tree, but of course i could be wrong.
a sneaky little window revealing a monstera leaf 😍
somehow i stumbled upon ghostly plants a lot that day, especially around the mourning hall. isn't this little skeleton plant with the rain drops caught in its bones absolutely beautiful?
approaching the 75 meter long concrete wall that goes right through the building. it is scattered with beautiful abstract imprints that will start up your imaginative senses, trying to find symbolic figurines and meanings in them. these imprints are otto herbert hajek's work ( and i do believe the folded roof is also pretty much a hajek structure ). unfortunately i couldn't find any special details about how the imprints were created ( though i do have an idea - they were probably stamped into the damp concrete ) and what hajek's thought process was, but i guess this is just one of those instances were you have to make up your own mind about it. whatever you will see is probably exactly what it needs to be.
a beautifully incorporated mourning bell.
the north side of the hall, broken up by big overlight windows and good geometric lines.
i find it particularly interesting that there are two mourning bells, one big bell for the main hall and one for smaller gatherings. maybe they also get played together sometimes! from here, the hall doesn't exude the hajek charm yet, but is probably more the handwriting of günther bock. i quite like the two-part approach for the building - serving the right kind of environment for both big and small funerals.
a look at the imprint. with good imagination you might even interprete figures and symbols into them! i personally mostly loved the structure of the imprints, but i can't deny that my brain told me i am looking at a cemetery procession or a forest of crosses and tomb stones.
they could also be apocalyptic landscapes ( the round circle reminded me of a dark sun and the swirly bits of a fire consuming the planet ).
looking at this one i thought of skeletons laying scattered in the soil of the earth.
it drizzled a bit, so please excuse the spots on the lense on some of these images. like i mentioned before, i am quite a sucker for geometric forms and lines, and all of that i found in this building! in addition the structure and composition of the concrete pleased my aesthetic senses very much. also, big glass windows and concrete is such a good combination 😍
nearing the verticular window section revealed some sweet details, plant pots! i probably would've chosen more stylish pots, but i still liked that they were embellishing the place with plants at all. because another one of my most favourite things i love about concrete architecture is, when natural components like indoor plants or a natural environment are incorporated into the whole structure.
close-up!
here's the only image i shot of the interior, i would love to visit it one day when it is actually open. i guess that that will only happen on open memorial days perhaps, or maybe on the last sunday before christmas, which is a special date in germany called totensonntag ( sunday of the dead ), where people come to commemorate their dead collectively. in any case, what i had seen through the windows really appealed to me, the wooden benches with the metal linings, the glass lamps hanging from the ceiling, even the gallery on which the organ was positioned on! but what is most special is of course the folded roof, which has a much more pronounced effect from the inside.
this wall could have a really nice effect if it weren't for the air cons destroying the overall picture. the way the concrete has been cast creates a very nice 3D effect actually!
without the air cons this could be a very sculptural image 😅 and would elevate the whole building quite some few notches upwards!
a little closer to admire the cast...
the gorgeous main entrance was my favourite part of the building, especially with the longer part of the procession wall leading up to it! also, the ground tiles were overgrown with moss and grass which only enhanced the nature versus architecture contrast and therefore leveled this building up a thousand times more through my eyes.
the procession wall into the other direction.
the wall continues within the building, it makes me very curious what kind of imprints you can see inside. the ones you see here reminded me of a nativity scene, with maria and joseph at the crib, surrounded by animals and angels.
i found the window situation much more interesting on this side of the building! the more trapezoid-formed overhead light ones are composing a good contrast to the thin and quadrangular ones down below. i also loved the interplay of triangles and quadrangles in the facade.
that nativity scene corner agan.
this big imprint was my favourite one out of all of them. it felt like i looked at our planet with all of humankind and flora and fauna on it, in the middle perhaps a core of rock ( or rather a core of encased lava? ) holding together ( or breaking apart? ) the mass of our earth. it could also be an asteroid taking course on us, shortly before impact. in a way i was also reminded of the movie melancholia by lars von trier, which kind of describes a similar incident ( only that it's another planet endangering ours ).
the whole structure, the patterns within it, the basalt-like pillars crossing from one end to the other, it made me want to reach out my hands and touch it and feel it. feeling the pinches and bumps, the craggedness and roughness of it all made it even more tangible and palpable to me.
fascinated by all of the various textures 😍
looking back to the building again, while withdrawing more and more from it. taking the procession into the opposite direction, away from the taking farewell part of death. it is strange, but looking back now, it felt like i was orbiting around death in a way, looking at it from all kinds of perspectives. i like what a building can do to your perception of certain concepts, especially in the context it resides in. i feel like this building was a very good embodiment of the last path towards eternity.
the procession wall toward the main building. the imprints here leading up to the big circle i mentioned before, reminded me of what happens before death - you know, this thing called life we all have to experience before exiting this world. a tiny blob of life at first, you will grow and walk towards many moments of importance, emotions, other people, carrying the essence of life forward until death comes a-rolling and grinds you to a stop. or perhaps you see something different here? are reminded of more religious symbolism? i would love to know, if you made it this far and are still reading my tiny notes, what you see when you look at this procession of abstract art?
the other side of the wall, part of the smaller mourning facility. i wasn't as inspired by the imprints here, though i kept thinking about the middle part looking like jesus hanging at the cross, surrounded by people ( even though the cross is basically a pole here ). maybe the square part in the front is a simple depiction of a casket?
the view towards the smaller wing of the buiding.
i really loved the roof situation, and i feel like otto herbert hajek played a big part in the conception and design of it, as playing with forms and geometry was his main signature! even the 3D wall i showed you earlier feels very hajek.
the administration entrance was more streamlined again, clearly adhering to the purpose of this wing..
a tiny pond was right next to the facility, providing even more respite and contemplation for mourners.
as i was going around the building i was surprised by many details, one of them being this incorporated garage. it is neatly hidden away from the rest of the building, not disturbing the overall appearance of the main structure.
the italian second world war memorial. it was installed in 1957 and commemorates 4788 italian victims of the second world war, most of them military detainees that had to perform forced labour around frankfurt.
here i said goodbye to this exceptional building and made my way back to the praunheim settlement.
a lovely gravesite i found on my way out of the cemetery.
a mid-century depiction of maria mourning her son.
back in the settlement i continued to explore what makes ernst may's architecture so special, the most apparent thing being the tight-knit community structures that were exemplary for his vision of inexpensive socialist architecture.
these front porch structures were existent on many houses and i am still wondering about whether they were original or a later addition, maybe stemming from the mid-1950ies? either way, i kinda liked the whole aesthetic of it! something similar also was realized in the römerstadt, a stone's throw away from praunheim, even though it deviates quite a bit and actually separates the entryways from each other instead of joining them.
unlike other may settlements, praunheim pretty much gave up on the uniformity of the original design, and is now a conglomeration of individualistic design choices, courtesy of the current home owners. the facades are wildly diverse and it feels a little bit chaotic at times.
for some complexes, though, there is a proper ambition for showcasing the authenticity of the initial architecture. this block of homes for example is rather minimalistic, and probably closest to the original design than the rest of the settlement. it also seems that these appartments are actually two-family-homes mixed with one-family-homes. there are 15 different types of appartments in the praunheim settlement, which only shows how much they wanted to integrate various living situations, be it single appartments or homes for big families or multigenerational ones.
another important characteristic of neues frankfurt architecture is the garden concept. ernst may was inspired to include gardens in his work because he had been working under raymond unwin during his university years, who was a famous english architect well-known for the garden city movement. one of ernst may's most important garden and landscape designers was leberecht migge, he designed the gardens and green spaces inside the settlements very meticulously - no spot was without purpose, all of the gardens were standardized - which meant that they would include various berry bushes, fruit trees and space for lawns, vegetable patches and trellisses for ranking plants.
many gardens in these settlements don't have the original configuration anymore, they were adapted to the needs of their respective owners. but, the garden plots themselves still exist and are attached to almost all of the homes in praunheim ( the multifamily buildings excluded, but even people living in these appartments were entitled to an allotment garden in a complex close to the residential buildings ).
some general streetscape images coming through...!
... showing the high ratio of individualistic alterations.
the grey appartment in the front was a newly renovated one, and i even found the architect's website showing off the interiors of it! a gorgeous example of how to modernize an almost 100 year old tiny house 😍 would move in immediately!
i really liked this tiled porch situation, it felt so very 1980ies 😍 good design!
another newly renovated one, really bringing the fact home how very narrow some of these homes are!
this house was built with a basement ( not all houses in the settlement had one! ). on the ground floor you have a kitchen in the front and a living room in the back, on the first floor there are two bedrooms for parents and kid and the bathroom. that's it. that's all. and out in the back you have your small garden lot. most of the houses had a similar layout, though they could vary in sizes and maybe even provide an additional room or so. in some instances houses were built with a second floor, those often were used as as a secondary flat, or granny flat as they are sometimes called, to lease out to single people so the owners of the house could pay off their amortisation installments.
back to the ludwig-landmann-straße, where the lights emerged and put the housing blocks into a special kind of atmosphere. the flats here were all single appartments. these blocks were designed by anton brenner, who gave them the nickname 'brennerblock'. the appartments inside these blocks average a size of about 51 square meteres, and they were ( and probably still are ) basically existential minimum for low-wage workers. they were designed in such a way that they would meet the required living standards, but everything was super rationalized and functionalized. the living room was connected to a bed niche that could be separated with draperies, the bathroom was at times so small that it did not even contain a shower anymore, only a sink to wash yourself. the whole appartment had built-in cupboards and storage shelfs, and the kitchen was a tiny version of the frankfurt kitchen. some flats had another small bedroom attached, for possible small family situations, the beds inside you could fold out. every appartment also had a balcony attached in the back, serving that much sought after feeling of air, light & space that was advertised by the city planners. everything was thought out and pre-planned to the smallest details. if you wanted to wash your laundry, the planners of the settlement built a central laundry building you could go to as well, as there was no room for that in the flats.
in the middle of ludwig-landmann-straße the subway brings you into the city and back out to praunheim again. it was very practical and important for people living in these quarters to have such good traffic junctions into the city, back then cars weren't planned into the general infrastructure yet.
typical new objectivity sight - the so-called zeilenbau ( row building ).
if it weren't for the modern cars passing on the street, this scenery would be a really nice early modern 1920ies one.
relatively nondescript at first, and only perceptible because of the purple illuminated cross on the facade, is the wichernkirchsaal. i stumbled upon this little evangelical church by accident while i explored the eastern part of the praunheim settlement ( which is the oldest part ). i don't care much for the architecture here, but the neonlight cross was most prominent to me and the building, despite having been built in the late 50ies, sort of fits well inside the minimal settlement. there is another church in the settlement, a catholic one, that i haven't encountered on my walk back then. upon researching for it, though, i should probably visit it, because it is a landmarked building as well, and boasts some wonderful details that i would like to see up close.
i did stumble upon a rather apocalyptic building, though, a multi-storey air-raid shelter from 1941, an old nazi relict, that is on the verge to being repurposed to house condos.
though i don't condone and support the nazi era, i still gotta say that this building is quite a cool one, looking sturdy like a fortress. i wonder what living inside this behemoth will look like!
everything was already fenced in to keep trespassers away from the building and reconstruction site.
one of the building's most remarkable details is the huge reichsadler (imperial eagle ) on the eastern side of the building. it once had a swastika embedded into the oval space at its feet, but thankfully this has been removed. i am still not a super big fan of the eagle, but i can recognize its decorational and historical worth of the otherwise rather bleak looking structure.
a last look at the old-fashioned, but still very modern-looking bunker.
as it got increasingly darker, i hurried up to get back to my car, without having finished my exploration of the oldest part of the settlement. guess i gotta have to return at some point! there is still the catholic church to see and admire and also to find the ebelfeld school, a school building that used a concept that would perhaps even set standards in educational architecture! the houses in this part of praunheim settlement were also a tad bit taller than the houses on the other side of ludwig-landmann-straße. the three-storey houses are what i described earlier, equipped with a granny flat that was leased out to pay off the owner's house expenses. but i guess, i have to dive into this beast at a different time in the future!
i hope you did enjoy this rather big foray into the architectural fabric that frankfurt has to offer, especially with playing such an important part in early modern construction! not to forget the very gorgeous brutalist gem on the westhausen cemetery, that took my heart by storm and is a great example of how those old principles of new objectivity can be further developed into an entirely new way of building - one that is stripped down to its very bones, but still can exude a fascinating beauty with the use of abstract art & design. 😍
you can be sure i will be back at some point and bring you some more goodness from the emerald city of germany!
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