Tour in Frankfurt am Main:
Old and "New Old Town"

The center of Frankfurt around the Römerberg can be regarded as a kind of architectural museum. In the birthplace of the city, examples of many architectural styles can be found. A new “exhibit” has been added in the form of a section of half-timbered Old Town. In our tour, this is contrasted with the “Alt Sachsenhausen” area, where much of the original building fabric still exists, though some of it is rather poorly maintained. Among others we show three modern buildings there that seem to be trendsetting for the further development of this district. We cross the Main River via the “Alte Brücke” (Old Bridge) and reach the New Old Town, opened in 2018, or more precisely, “the reconstruction of a city district with a strong memory of the previous buildings on the site.” There, we explain the individual buildings, the urban and construction history, as well as the structural and legal aspects of this project, which remains highly debated in the architectural community—most non-architects, however, think it’s great.