The Frankfurt Bridges should be exemplary for the city of the future- and this should be designed humanely for the well-being of people and not according to abstract principles

When societies work toward a better future, they have a positive goal in mind. The architecture on the Frankfurt Bridges is correspondingly positive and full of humanity. It is not the result of a forecast that mercilessly perpetuates everything modern, as is often outlined when it comes to the vision of a city in the future.

Urban planning should always start with what many people demonstrably find pleasant, beautiful and worth living in. The best and least distorted indicator of this is rental and purchase prices, making sure to compare areas that are equivalent in terms of location and differ only in terms of urban planning layout.

Another good indicator is what kind of buildings or neighborhoods people from all over the world come to admire as tourists. One should also always learn from this before planning new areas.

Urban planning should therefore always look for models of success and learn from what is already there, what has been tried and tested, instead of trying to realize abstract "ideas" that look attractive on visualizations but are planned past the people. If one orients oneself on what has proven itself and is in demand, then this is to be valued as a valuable urban planning architectural approach and has nothing to do with "unimaginative imitation".

Urban planning and architecture is not about the urban planners and architects, it is exclusively, without exception, only about the people who have to use or inhabit the planned and constructed buildings - no other factor counts, no matter if it is modern or traditional architecture

The philosophy of architecture worldwide over centuries: Always take the best and develop it further!

While architects today often see themselves as creative designers of new things, their predecessors in ancient times were primarily master builders who endeavoured to build the best and most beautiful things that (already) existed for people - their "clients". One oriented oneself permanently to the buildings of the ancients and predecessors and took over "the best" of it - that is to say, all that which one still found to be good. The only things that were changed were those that resulted from the new needs of society or from new technical possibilities.

To this day, good architects do not see themselves as self-referential or self-actualizing designers of new things, but rather as service-providing master builders, for whom the only thing that counts is whether people love to live and work in their buildings - or not. For the shape of the living space in which people spend 100% of their time (at least in cities) is a fundamental component of life that must be served in a correspondingly more "customer-oriented" way than other product or service needs. The often limiting dictate of building owners to build cost-effectively should not counteract this orientation towards humane architecture (i.e. architecture loved by people), but rather inspire them to nevertheless build beautifully and livably - a challenge that must be mastered not only in architecture, but also in all other industries.

For example, the sketchbook of the architect Ernst Rambaum, who even maintained his professional routine during the First World War and sketched the buildings he passed and brought them home with him: "3 years in the East, advance, stage and front", ink, pencil and coloured pencil drawings in a bound, stapled folder.

If one always takes the results of centuries of "team groundwork" so to say by earlier architects and further optimizes it, then the kind of architecture that makes us travel halfway around the world as tourists automatically emerges: Because no matter where we travel, it is always the old buildings and old city centres that we find beautiful and that - when renovated - are also the most sought-after by the local population for living - whether in Morocco, China, Turkey, Persia or anywhere else in the world.

If you look at the year of construction of the old buildings in Frankfurt, you will see that entire streets were built in just a few years:  Within 30 years, all the beautiful town houses were built in which apartments are still very much in demand today. The unbelievable variety of the facades is fascinating - even though the same elements were always used: symmetrically arranged windows, balconies, dormers and facade-protecting cornerstones, cornices, roofing, etc.

In those days, just as today, there were certainly "mass-produced" houses, which were often comparatively plain and poor in ornamentation - but which are nevertheless still extremely popular today and exhibit a very special beauty through their proportions alone

But it is not only skyscrapers and office buildings that offer fascinating modern architecture in Frankfurt

Single-family and multi-family houses also come in a wide variety of architectural directions with buildings that invite you to live in them. They also fulfil another important criterion of good architecture: you are pleased at the sight of them when you walk past them and would also be pleased if you pulled up the blinds in the morning and you had these buildings in front of your eyes when looking out of the window.

If these conditions are fulfilled, it is a matter of humane architecture - that is, architecture created for people and their desires and needs.

Much of Frankfurt's diverse architecture was destroyed during the Second World War

But cultural assets were not only destroyed during the war: In the decades that followed, old buildings of high artistic value were also demolished in order to be replaced by new, more profitable buildings.  

For this reason, 60% of the buildings on the Frankfurt Bridges reflect architectural styles from the period before the Second World War

Forty percent of the buildings on the bridges, however, are inspired by modern architecture. Both in the reception of modern architecture and in that of old buildings, the selection of models is not limited to buildings in Frankfurt, but takes "the best" of successful architecture from all over Europe.

Another topic that characterizes the Frankfurt Bridge landscape: the statics of the bridges, which must be designed in such a way that buildings can be erected on them

In terms of construction statics, the Frankfurt Bridges are a hybrid between "bridge construction" and "structural engineering". Unlike normal bridges, they do not have to withstand exorbitant spans, which is a relief in terms of statics. However, the Frankfurt Bridges have to carry a not inconsiderable amount of load: the buildings, the vehicles, and the plants along with the substrate soil in which they grow. In some places, this is a greater load than what river and motorway bridges have to bear. With the means and methods of modern statics, however, the Frankfurt Bridges as a whole are a challenge that can be mastered - from a structural point of view, there are far more astonishing structures that have already been mastered.

The challenge with the statics of the Frankfurt Bridges is rather the permanent change of the column distances and column arrangements, which change permanently with the course of the bridges, in order not to impair driveways, sight lines or even trees on the ground.

Besides the width of the road to be bridged, the construction statics is the limiting factor for the number and size of buildings that can be built on a bridge section: If more columns can be placed and, if necessary, the median strip of the roadway can also be used for columns, more or larger buildings can be placed, i.e. a greater weight can be placed on the bridge section. If only a few columns can be placed, because otherwise driveways on the ground would be blocked, bicycle lanes narrowed, sight lines for motorists impaired or trees damaged, then sometimes only a few or no buildings can be built on the respective sections despite the considerable width of the road, and the only permitted loads are the vehicles, pedestrians and, for example, a dog run.

Bridges offer only a limited amount of building space, in contrast to building areas in the city's environs. If you want to have transport routes along the bridge surface in addition to the buildings and a pedestrian path between them, the buildings automatically become very narrow or do not have much depth.

The architecture on the bridges is subject to the restrictions of statics and bridge width - but can otherwise be designed in a varied manner

Accordingly, in the section of bridges on Hanauer Landstrasse, terraced houses will also be designed in a colourful and varied way, following the architecture in Amsterdam.  Since large windows on the ground floor offer too little privacy despite the water basin, work areas for home offices can be planned there.

Do you know the land where the lemons bloom?

Goethe already wrote about Italy- and in Frankfurt's architecture, too, a longing for Mediterranean aesthetics was expressed in some buildings, so that even today there are houses that could stand in Italy in exactly the same way and not - as in these examples - in Frankfurt's inner city or in the Westend.

Art Nouveau in Frankfurt is mostly found in large commercial buildings in the city centre and in large public buildings such as the Südbahnhof or Schumann-Theater. Smaller villas or single-family homes were much rarer than in Darmstadt, for example or Wiesbaden, the strongholds of Art Nouveau near Frankfurt.

For all style elements in the planning of the old buildings on the Frankfurt Bridges, photographs from the picture archive of the Stiftung Altes Neuland Frankfurt were taken as a model

The picture archive contains for the most part photographs of Frankfurt's old building architecture, but also in part photographs from those of other German or European cities. As an example, here is an excerpt from the picture archive section „balustrades".

Window walls and walls without windows

In large public buildings, it was common practice during the reconstruction of the 1950s to house the stairwell in a round glass section of the building. Two buildings in Frankfurt's city centre can still be admired today with these unusual stairwells.

The principle can already be found in Bauhaus architecture in the 1930s - not only in commercial buildings, but also in private villas. Today, only the best rooms of the building would be placed in such sections.

Whether round or square - since the Bauhaus Era, windows have been used much more than before to structure and design a building in its sections. Windows took up entire walls, while there were also completely windowless components directly next to them.

There are many styles represented in the modern houses on the Frankfurt Bridges - always adopting the best of the period.

Modern architecture also already has its own tradition, which is taken up on the bridges. The bridge section over Miquellallee, for example, also pays homage to the architecture of the 1950s: an entire neighborhood with buildings in the architectural style of that time.

An example: Above the living room with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the garden is the bedroom, in front of which is a large covered balcony. On the other side of the house, which opens onto the street, there is an office and study across three floors. The perfect layout for the self-employed who also receive clients in the home office.

The IT college for 2000 students is being built there, for whom one-room apartments in container architecture are nicer than large student dormitories.

Thematic focuses of the individual bridge quarters are also expressed in the architecture

Within the quarters, however, the architecture is mainly from one era or style, otherwise the bridge landscape in the quarters would become too restless.

For some quarters of the Frankfurt Bridges, hand drawings served as a visual template for the building design

Why are not all buildings planned to be completely barrier-free?

Completely barrier-free design for a building means not only that the entrance situation must be wheelchair accessible, but also that there must be an interior lift if the corresponding apartment or business or restaurant extends over several floors. Furthermore, complete accessibility is only given if there is also access to all guest toilets and terraces for people in wheelchairs.

The building landscape on the Frankfurt Bridges is characterized by two features: Due to the narrow building areas per house, many buildings are very narrow with an interior depth of only 4 or 5 meters, so that an interior elevator would take up a relatively large amount of space or would be in the way of necessary walkways and escape routes. Bathrooms and toilets  - especially guest toilets -  are located under the stairs due to the frequently used „Tiny House building layout“ and are already quite narrow even without a wheelchair. Furthermore, the narrow building area width does not always allow the addition of a wheelchair ramp or mini-elevator to the ground floor mezzanine. However, the design of the mezzanine is also necessary due to the lack of space in many building areas on the brigdes, as the house utility technology is installed under the bridges-houses, because it often has no space in the house.

It would not be possible to erect barrier-free buildings on many construction areas on the bridges, and the only alternative would then be to leave all these construction areas empty simply because they cannot be built barrier-free - which would be a senseless waste of potentially erectable affordable living space at the expense of those who are not in wheelchairs but urgently need an apartment. The same applies to about 20 percent of the shops, restaurants or service providers, where, however, the ground floor access is barrier-free in any case, only the barrier-free toilet, terrace and indoor wheelchair situation would not be feasible. However, since more than half of all particularly narrowly planned buildings are single-storey, people in wheelchairs have as unrestricted access to almost all buildings in the Frankfurt Bridges as everyone else - a model for the building landscape of the future.