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.

Client:
Stadt Frankfurt am Main
Dezernat VII – Kultur und Wissenschaft
vertreten durch das Hochbauamt der Stadt Frankfurt am Main

Architects:
Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei, Stuttgart

Team:
David Fornol (Projektleitung bis LPH 4), Daniel Steinhübl (Projektleitung), Eva Caspar, Hamze Jalloul, Anna Schönhoff, Marc Kager, Stefanie Günter, Hannah Thibault, Urban Kreuz

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

Engineering for technical building facilities:
ZWP Ingenieur AG, Wiesbaden

Electrical engineering:
Steinigeweg Planungs GmbH & Co KG, Darmstadt

Architects rebuilding the existing housing stock:
DIEZINGER & KRAMER, Diezinger Architekten GmbH, Eichstätt

Competition:
2008 – 1st prize

Construction period:
2012 – 2017

Site area:
4.480 square meters

Gross floor area:
10.150 square meters

Effective Area:
6.420 square meters

Location:
Saalhof 1, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Awards
Auszeichnung beim Deutschen Städtebaupreis 2018
Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau und Landesplanung (DASL) / Wüstenrot Stiftung

Preisträger Deutscher Natursteinpreis 2018
Deutscher Naturwerksteinverband / BDA / NürnbergMesse

Nominierung für den DAM Preis für Architektur 2019
Deutsches Architektur Museum (DAM) Frankfurt

Auszeichnung guter Architektur in Hessen – Martin-Elsaesser-Plakette 2018
BDA Frankfurt

Auszeichnung Vorbildlicher Bauten im Land Hessen 2017
Architekten- und Stadtplanerkammer Hessen

Publications
Lederer   Ragnarsdóttir  Oei 2
Lederer, Arno / Ragnarsdóttir, Jórunn / Oei, Marc (Hg.)
Jovis Verlag Berlin 2021

Arquitectura Viva
04|2021

Birkäuser Verlag / Roland Burgard (Hg.):
Das Museumsufer Frankfurt - Architekten und Bauten
Basel 2020

DASL, Werner Durth (Hg.):
Stadt Bauen 7 – Deutscher Städtebaupreis 2018
09|2019

Le Guide Vert – Michelin (Hg.):
Francfort – Week & Go
03|2019

BDA Hessen (Hg.):
Große Häuser, Kleine Häuser – Ausgezeichnete Architektur in Hessen 2013-2018
02|2019

dom publishers (Hg.):
Architekturführer Deutschland 2019
11|2018

wettbewerbe aktuell
07 I 2018

werk, bauen + wohnen
06 I 2018

MARK Nr. 71
12 I 2017

Baumeister
11 I 2017

Die Zeit
05.10.2017

DBZ
10 | 2017

FAZ
25.09.2017

DBZ
08/09 | 2017

bauwelt
08 | 2017

wettbewerbe aktuell
08 | 2017

FAZ
25.06.2017

Stuttgarter Zeitung
26.05.2017

FAZ
22.05.2017

Photos
Roland Halbe, Stuttgart