Numerous forgotten craft traditions are being revived on the Frankfurt Bridges to counteract the throwaway mentality

On the bridges a Manufactory Promenade is created: There, numerous crafts will be taught, from belt-making to lace-making and glass-blowing to traditional baking of real bread and cooking of traditional cuisine. The craftsmen workshops sell their wares in shops along the promenade and offer them in the quarter's gastronomy. Scattered throughout the neighborhood are repair cafés and hobby pop-ups where citizens are taught the value of crafting and repairing. The Manufactory Promenade is complemented by a Gourmet Promenade, both being colourful, lively and modern. Here, craftsmanship becomes a luxury good, a life-style product and a gourmet passion. The fact that things should be made to last 50 or 100 years and not three, is an imperative in times of increasing resource scarcity. This quarter on the Frankfurt Bridges also shows young people who are interested in traditional crafts a perspective on how these professions can be given a new future potential.

Content: On the arm of the bridges, a world of craft traditions is emerging - interwoven with forward-looking sustainability and modern health awareness

The craft workshops on the Manufactory Promenade are grouped in such a way that machines and equipment can be used in cooperation for working with similar materials.

The most important craft traditions for luxury and lifestyle products are represented. They not only sell their wares, but also train up-and-coming craftsmen and cooperate with the repair cafés in the neighbourhood.

In addition, there are all kinds of artisanal food preparations such as the baking of real bread or the traditional production of sausages - a grouping of businesses that forms a Gourmet Promenade and acts as suppliers for the restaurants and grocery stores on the Frankfurt Bridges.

There are still strongholds of traditional handicrafts in many rural areas, but rarely in the city - the Manufactory Promenade on the Frankfurt Bridges is therefore specifically intended to strengthen the connection of city people with handicrafts

Whether on the Glass Route in the Upper Palatinate and East Bavarian Forest, in the Brushmaking Region in Saxony or in the Jugmaking Region of Ceramics in Rhineland-Palatinate - they still exist, the craft businesses that produce unique and high-quality products. Supplied by machines and modern technology, many of them can manufacture on a larger scale and thus not only supply customers throughout Germany, but also export their sought-after products abroad.

But they all have one and the same problem: fewer and fewer young talents can be found to replace the old masters one day. This can be countered with concepts such as the Manufactory Promenade on the Frankfurt Bridges: There are more than 300 young people being trained in almost 30 traditional craft businesses, since it is extremely important to bring traditionally made products back to people, and to see craft as a great opportunity to make the generally prevailing lifestyle more sustainable in the context of the sustainability movement:

(1) The materials used are mostly renewable raw materials or existing natural materials.

(2) The products are all of high quality and therefore have a much longer shelf life and a much smaller environmental footprint over their lifetime.

(3) Even if the products break, they can be repaired and do not have to be thrown away completely, so that the awareness increases that we do not have to continue to live in an unrestrained throwaway society, but that there are alternatives.

(4) People can make things themselves in two hobby pop-ups on the promenades and repair broken objects in repair cafés with the help of experts. This strengthens the relationship to things and also counteracts the trend towards throwing things away.

On the arm of the Frankfurt Bridges, the Manufactory Promenade is being built with around 22,000 sqm of space for various handicraft companies providing apprenticeship, and 6,000 sqm for the accompanying vocational school.

Craft and repair culture is sustainable and therefore not only traditional but also highly modern

On the Manufactory Promenade all products can be made extremely cool and contemporary by combining the artistic of the past with innovation - a concept that enhances the beautiful old craft traditions and practices them in a new light, with modern technology and newly available materials as well as current design.

Lifestyle Craft

Basketmaker/Wickerwork Designer

Brush Maker

Wooden toy maker

Turner

Cooper/coopers

Belt maker/metal design

Bicycle mechanic

Precision mechanic

Potter

Glassmakers

Glass/porcelain painting

Saddler

Luxury Craft

Bag maker

Furrier

Made to measure

Custom tailor

Lace making

Stuffers

Embroidery

Hatter

Watchmaker

Gemstone setters

Fine polisher

Goldsmith

Silversmith

Gourmet Crafts

Baker

Pastry chef

Chocolatier

Butcher/Fleischer

"Fish Butcher"

Cook classic

Cook vegetarian/vegan

Cook East Asian cuisine

Cook Middle Eastern cuisine

Cook Mediterranean cuisine

Cook Latin American cuisine

Cook Scandinavian cuisine

Cook Slavic cuisine

The Manufactory and Gourmet Promenades form a colourful, lively quarter with repair cafés, hobby pop-ups and a music pavilion

The concept of the repair café originated in Holland and has since spread around the world with over 2,200 repair cafés: People bring their broken things to the café, be it damaged electrical appliances, clothes or other everyday items, and can repair them there with the help of - mostly volunteer - experts.

On the Manufactory Promenade there are both, these classic repair cafés and those where you can leave things to the handicraft experts for a small fee and wait for them or pick them up later.

Volunteer citizens can go to the cafés as experts, but trainees from the handicrafts manufactories are also sent to the repair cafés for a few hours a week to help with their different backgrounds of experience. This creates a positive connection between the people in the manufactories and the citizens of the city.

It's a similar story with the two hobby pop-ups in the neighborhood: there, too, everyone from apprentices to master craftsmen can get involved and give lessons or simply accompany a craft hobby.

The music pavilion rounds off the cultural offerings for all.

Loft architecture is best suited for any form of manufacturing and thus also for manual work in the repair cafés

The repair cafés all have high windows, large tables, pleasant lighting and a robust, easy-to-clean floor.

Storage space for the repair materials is just as important as isolated particularly sturdy tables for heavier equipment and hammering work.

The loft architecture creates a cool and at the same time pleasant atmosphere.

The repair cafés are very similar in structure to the hobby pop-ups, of which there are also two in the Manufactory quarter. Here, depending on the pop-up theme, simple processing steps of the individual crafts can be learned in courses - open to adults as well as children and young people.

The repair cafés can also be extended by conservatory-like extensions, where due to the spaciousness especially larger things such as bicycles or prams can be repaired more easily.

Trades with similar materials are also always located closer to each other in the quarter

Material deliveries are made by autonomous delivery vehicles relatively regularly in the early morning, as the buildings on the bridges do not offer huge storage space and the floor space (GF) on the ground floor is a scarce commodity: This is where the main part of the operation takes place, requiring machines and materials that cannot easily be relocated to the first floor; however, the ground floor also contains the shop and window space for customer traffic.

It is therefore advantageous if companies can help each other out with storage space and - although this is seldom the case - can also use each other's equipment from time to time.

Correspondingly, basket weavers and brush makers are adjacent here, followed by wood turners, who share a building with the wooden toy makers; then, as a further woodworking craft, comes the cooperage.

Wickerwork designers are indispensable for the manufacture of many elegant timeless furniture

But, as the Architectural Digest magazine regretfully wrote in its 2019 article "Craft tradition: threatened with extinction?", "At Tecta, one of the great keepers of the Bauhaus legacy, there is still exactly one basket maker capable of providing Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's cantilever chair with Lilly Reich's beautiful wickerwork."

The basket weaving school on the Frankfurt Bridges should stop this negative development and revive the traditional skills.

www.classic-design24.comfurniturestuehle-chairsmies-van-der-rohe

Wickerwork can be used to make a variety of things: all of them with high quality, functional and ecologically sound

The repair of old furniture, the creative design of new furniture, baskets or paravons: the possibilities in weaving are extremely diverse. Even wickerwork jewellery can be made.

Even though artificial materials are being used more and more frequently, especially outdoors, traditional materials have the great advantage that they are made from renewable raw materials and thus make a more valuable contribution to ecological living than industrial plastic wickerwork.

From cucumber brushes to body brushes to car wash brushes: Only a master brush maker can lay them out properly so that they clean thoroughly but don't damage anything at the same time

Brushes are needed in industry, but are also back in fashion in the consumer goods sector: more and more wooden brushes can be found on the shelves of bathroom and household goods stores, many of them with natural bristles again.

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With the art of woodturning different materials can be used to create everything that has curves

The most important thing in woodturning is the lathe, on which not only wood, but also alabaster, amber, horn or even soapstone can be processed. However, the most common is the processing of wood.

Bars of interior stair railings or balcony railings, for example, are made by turning.

There will also be a certain demand for this on the Frankfurt Bridges themselves, for example in the construction of the two opera houses or some of the music pavillons, where interior staircases can also have a banister with turned wooden rods.

But woodturners are also needed for furniture making or the production of everyday objects: Turned vases, salt and pepper shakers or fountain pens are high-quality life-style products that can be made sustainably from the renewable raw material wood by turning - and, with good care, last forever.

Wooden toys are all the rage - plastic toys that flash and make haunting sounds can't keep up

In contrast to plastic toys, which toddlers can merely press on to produce shrill continuous noise with great persistence and to the chagrin of all the adults present, wooden toys encourage and challenge the motor skills of small children and their play imagination.

More and more young parents are trying to introduce wooden toys and creative play to their children alongside the flood of cheap toys that are constantly being bought new and are only interesting for the shortest of times.

Wooden toys also have the advantage that they do not give off any softeners as some plastic toys did in the past, and that they are still perfectly usable after years and can be re-gifted when the own children grow out of the toy age.

Woodturning, carving, wood hoop turning - the training for it takes place at present only in the wood toy maker and wood turner school in Seiffen

Enthusiasm for a product can only grow if you know it. It's the same with a profession: Most children and young people in a city like Frankfurt have never seen a woodworking craft live, therfore they will hardly get the idea of training in this direction.

On the Frankfurt Bridges, primary school children or young people from secondary schools can take trips to the Manufactory Promenade to marvel at the individual crafts and, as part of the hobby pop-ups, attend one or two courses to try out simple steps of the crafts for themselves.

Once you're done with school, you're more likely to get the idea to devote yourself to basket weaving or toy making if you have ever seen it live. And as an adult, you are much more likely to buy these things that you got to know on the beautiful Manufactory Promenade.

Coopers, barrel maker, tubber or hooper - depending on how tons are designated in a region of Germany, the designation for the manufacturing craft is also different.

The production of barrels had suffered a severe blow in the 70s with the advent of plastic tanks. But less than 20 years later, the trend had reversed and all the wineries wanted wooden barrels again: It had been discovered that high-quality wine in particular needed "contact with the wood".

The demand especially in Hesse is not to be underestimated: With over 4000 hectares of vineyards, Hesse is the fourth largest of the wine-producing federal states in Germany, after Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria.

Cooperage is one of the oldest crafts in Germany and at the same time highly topical.

Metal fitters can be described as artistic metal technicians: From furniture fittings to jewellery to lamps, they are the masters of metalworking

Both the repair and the reproduction of antique lamps would be inconceivable without the metal fitters‘ craft. However, they combine many more aspects in their profession: Chasing metal, casting, engraving or even making jewellery are all part of their training.

Experts on this Topic

Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks - Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes e.V. - Handwerkskammer Frankfurt-Rhein-Main - Handwerkskammer Wiesbaden - Handwerkskammer Kassel - Handwerk Connected

The trades are intermixed on the Manufactory Promenade with housing, gastronomy and shops for daily needs

While on the ground floor there are shops and production areas of the companies, on the upper floors of the buildings there are apartments: There are one- to two-room apartments for trainees, but also the masters, teachers of the vocational school or completely different groups of the population can live there in the beautiful and affordable living space.

The quarter is always lively, there is always something going on, and you can stroll through and see something new everywhere. In summer, the doors to the production facilities are open and passing visitors can catch a glimpse of the craftsmen at work in the halls - or see some of them at work in the courtyard.

The neighbourhood comes by to shop in the shops for daily needs, and visitors to the bridge enjoy the range of restaurants and cafés in the neighbourhood.

Saddlers make saddles for horses - but they can do much more than that

A handmade saddle is a true work of art and has its price accordingly, but well cared for it will last a horse's life and longer - even if it may not fit the same horse for that long. It is all the more important that saddles are not disposed of, but can be resold in impeccable condition even years later, especially in order to deal with the leather sustainably.

There are 60,000 horses in Hesse, so the market for them is there.

However, saddlers can also specialize in car saddlery, as they can make fabulously comfortable seats for modern cars as well as classic cars. The same goes for motorcycle saddles.

In general, the saddler is an artist at the leather: So there are also saddlers who can produce portmannaies and bags.

Glassmaking is probably the most fascinating discipline for spectators on the Manufactory Promenade

Especially children are amazed at the sight of the glassblower and glassmaker art.

In addition to traditional products, the venerable craft also produces ultra-modern glass art on the Frankfurt Bridges. The focus of the glassmakers on the Manufactory Promenade is on the production of everyday objects, while the glassmakers on the Offenbach Master Bridge concentrate on glass art on buildings.

The students and masters of the tManufactory Promenade and the Offenbach Master Bridge are also likely to engage in lively exchanges in disciplines other than glass art, since it is possible to travel quite comfortably "door to door" from one quarter to the other with the autonomously driven transport system.

Sandblasted decorations made by hand are still very much in demand today

With sandblasting blower and special stencils old art nouveau motives can also be applied by hand to a base glass.

Afterwards, the surface is sealed so that it can be cleaned easily and dirt does not adhere to the surface structure.

With the help of deep-blasting techniques, contrasts and shading are created: a 3D look is the result. Coloured, faceted or fitted with glass lenses, the light that falls through these glass panes can create quite a magical effect.

Artistic sandblasted decors are especially popular for interior doors, but they can also be used for windows that need to be opaque but at the same time translucent.

Pottery and glass art receive their crowning finish through painting

In addition to glass art, there is also a workshop on the Manufactory Promenade that trains apprentice potters, a craft that is only taught in Germany in the traditional „Keramische Werkstatt Margaretenhöhe“.

Both products, glass art and pottery art, can serve a variety of design trends through creative painting and become indispensable for the contemporary cool household.

In addition to handmade luxury goods, there are also fashionable life-style goods on the manufactory line

Custom-made clothing with hand embroidery or bobbin lace can usually only be bought for very special occasions such as weddings and the like.

But there is also the handmade fashion "light", for simple summer dresses, T-shirts or blouses, and the lace can be added complementary, concealing or as a single piece as with a scarf, for example.

The pieces that are created not only last an eternity, but are of such quality that they can be adapted or transformed into new fashionable pieces during sewing workshops at the hobby pop-ups.

In particular, young women or girls who seasonally buy up to 20 low-quality garments or more, only to wear each one a few times and then discard it, can discover here another way to "always new" fashion created sustainably.

Every few years, the fashion industry rediscovers lace, and clothes are lavishly adorned with it

But even without these trends, it is impossible to imagine the world of women's dresses without beautiful lace: whether in a wedding dress or evening gown or even on pyjamas - lace gives a garment a very special touch. And with the art of making lace, there is also the possibility of producing exactly the lace that suits the garment by selecting the material and colour for custom-made garments. Depending on whether the lace touches the skin, a pleasant material can be chosen instead of the often scratchy polyester of industrially produced lace.

Accordingly, it is worthwhile to teach the art of lace making on the Manufactory Promenade again

As with all crafts on the Manufactory Promenade, the apprentices first learn from the master craftsmen thoroughly how to produce their respective craft by hand, and then, of course, as the apprenticeship progresses, they learn how to use machines to produce things either entirely or in parts by machine.

But only if the craft is first seriously learned in the traditional way, the complete technical and artistic knowledge is carried along and gives the work of the so trained artisans its unique quality.

Beautiful hand embroidery can not only enhance women's fashion, but also give men's suits a very special touch.

Shopping on the Manufactory Promenade becomes a very special experience: No matter if you buy something or just repair something in the repair café - a walk on the Manufactory Promenade is always an enriching experience.

Experts on this Topic

Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks - Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes e.V. - Handwerkskammer Frankfurt-Rhein-Main - Handwerkskammer Wiesbaden - Handwerkskammer Kassel - Handwerk Connected

Traditional bakery, butchery, fish specialties and culinary arts form the heart of the Gourmet Promenade

In the handicrafts companies for bakery and confectionery, the shop area of the enterprise is located on the ground floor next to the bakery.

The ground floor of the building for meat and poultry butchery is divided in the same way.

The profession "cook" is not a trade profession in Germany, because in the past rich people simply had their own cook and the rest of the people were their own cook. Nevertheless, a large training company for cooks should not be missing on the Gourmet Promenade of the Frankfurt Bridges.

The small "fish butcher" is actually a made-up term, there are traditionally no fish butchers existing. But there are specialists who can cut their fish and seafood similar to a butcher his meat and also make fish specialties from the components.

Long-awaited things come true on the Gourmet Promenade: the training of bakers who can bake real bread and other baked goods without any ready-mixes

Anyone who has ever eaten bread or rolls from a truly traditional baker will never want to buy anything else. Yet they hardly exist, the bakers who offer such delicacies. This is because baking without any ready-made mixes requires excellent professional training and mastery of the craft; but above all, it is tedious and therefore costly. If a bakery wants to pay the shop rent in Frankfurt, it therefore usually has to switch to the much cheaper ready-made doughs for cost reasons.

It's different at the Frankfurt Bridges: The shop rents are extremely cheap, but come with conditions. All supermarkets, for example, have to fulfil a sustainability aspect, be it by offering organic goods, committing to the low-carbon packaging concept of the Frankfurt Bridges or focusing on products from the region. By offering low-priced shop rents, they can at least partially compensate for the additional costs of their goods and offer consumers affordable quality. Following the same principle, the bridge bakers can afford to produce real dough themselves with all the necessary time and effort without having to become expensive. And the bakery craftshops as well as the vocational schools on the Gourmet Promenades trains them so that they can actually do it!

Eine Bäckerei-Ausbildung umfasst unglaublich viele Kompetenzfelder

Basics

Weight, quantity, recipe conversion

Degree of grinding, flour type, ash content determination

Selection of other ingredients

Causes and prevention of pastry and storage defects

Nutritional-physiological significance of raw materials typical for bakery products and their ingredients

Yeast doughs, puff pastry, puff pastry, shortcrustpastry, honeycake and gingerbreadpastry

Dough temperature

Dough guide

Kneading process

Dough formation

Dough yield

Biological, physical and chemical loosening

Shaping

Fermentation process

Fermentation control

Baking process: oven and fat baking device

Use of baker's linen and baker's silk

Use of proofing baskets (wood pulp etc.)

Steaming, steaming

Wipe off / Buff off

Apricotting, Glazing, Decorating

Wheatrolls, wheatbreads, toasts, baguettes

Direct and indirect dough guidance

Dough formation, especially kneading process,

Dough rest

Dough yield

Ejecting / knocking off

Stretching and folding

Shaping

- work

- stippling

- hitting

- winding

- braiding

- cutting edges

Fermentation process

Fermentation control

- fermentation retardation

- interruption of fermentation

Determine relative humidity

Cereal milling products, in particular rye flours

Effect of acid, salt, dough leavening baking agents

Congealing:

All Sour

Reinzuchtsauer

Spontaneous souring microorganisms in sourdough

Tasks and management conditions of the sourdough stages

Three-step sourdough guide

Multi-stage and single-stage sourdough systems

Sourdough Schemes

Sourdough portion

Combined dough guides

Wheat Sour

Sourdough error

Sourdough evaluation, especially sensory evaluation, acidity, pH-value

Nutritional and physiological significance

Sourdough fuse

Dough guide

Dough strength

Dough temperature

Resting of the dough (proofing, bale proofing)

Selecting the starter material/starter culture

Determining the acid content

Fermentation processes

Fermentation control

Fermentation tolerance

Fermentation undercut

fermentation delay, etc.)

Baking preparations, in particular

Scrap

Cutting

Stippen

Flour

Oven types

Furnace capacity

Baking process, in particular steam

Temperature control

Furnace drive

Crumbling

Crusting

Bake Out

Baking Loss

Special baking method, in particular interruption baking method

Bake in two

Baking temperatures

Basic recipesforflakypastry and puff pastry

raw materials, in particular drawn margarine, cheese

Production methods/process techniques

- Touring of the drawing fat, including loosening of the pastry

- Reprocessing, such as pastries, pig's ears, pies, croissants, croissants.

- Finishing by topping with fruit, filling, apricotting, glazing

Cereals, wholemealgroundproducts

Raw materials of animal and plant origin, in particular non-bread cereals and oilseeds

Broth

Source piece

Leftover bread

Dough guide

Kneading process

Dough formation

Shaping

Special baking methods Sliced bread

Meringue mass, sponge cake mass, Viennese mass, sand mass, burnt mass, macaroon mass, roasting mass

Systematic workflows, in particular

- agitation

- hot and cold whipping

- deliquescence

- roasting

- Address,

-Dry

- scouring

Impact method, in particular single and double boiler masses

Litre weight Baking process

Cream and custard tarts, classic and regionally significant tarts, baked tarts and fruit tarts

Fillings from

-Fruits

-Cocoa products and raw masses

-Whipped cream, cream creams

-Cooked, stirred and whipped creams

Basic techniques in the construction and design of cakes and desserts

The gourmet bakery craftshops trains for the whole range of the baking world

Travellers often wonder why croissants taste so delicious in a village in France or flatbread is such a delight in a small bakery in the Middle East, and why you can't get these delicacies in exactly the same way in Germany. Well, for one thing, it may be because of the ingredients: Every flour is different, and even water can lead to differences, as brewers know who brew the same beer in Bohemia and Bavaria and yet taste differences. But it's not just because of the ingredients or the ovens, but again because original recipes are elaborate. Even German baking specialties like Pumpernickel, Steamed Bread or real Pretzel Pastries have accordingly become a rarity - at least handmade.

The baker apprentices on the Frankfurt Bridges learn to bake the entire range of baked goods in the traditional way.

Croissant traditionnel - alamyimages.fr.jpg

The demand for baked goods made from traditional grains is growing

Goodto bake cereals

Spelt

Amaranth

Emmer

Cerealsdifficultto bake

Barley

Oats and in

Non-bakingvarieties

Corn

Millet

Buckwheat

Gourmet line bakers know the recipes and baking processes for all common grains

In times of ever more frequent food intolerances and ever new dietary preferences of people, even grain varieties that have fallen into oblivion or foreign varieties must be able to be processed into delicious baked goods by the broadly trained bakers on the Frankfurt Bridges.

The bakers on the bridges have enjoyed thorough traditional training, which allows them to use all the grains of Europe to produce delicious baked goods.

Experts on this Topic

Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks - Zentralverband des Deutschen Baugewerbes e.V. - Handwerkskammer Frankfurt-Rhein-Main - Handwerkskammer Wiesbaden - Handwerkskammer Kassel - Handwerk Connected

Butcher training on the Gourmet Promenade focuses on the production of meat and sausage products

It is not possible to run a slaughterhouse on the Frankfurt Bridges, but the gourmet butchers can cooperate with organic farms in Hesse, both in terms of basic training in slaughtering and for the supply of meat. The focus is accordingly on the production of meat products, and without colourings, artificial preservatives or flavour enhancers - which, like traditionally baked bread, has become a rarity. Here, too, the products are only delicious if they are made by master craftsmen and with the appropriate amount of time.

The training is supplemented by thorough knowledge of poultry butchery, i.e. the cutting, plucking, gutting and boning of poultry of all kinds - an activity that requires precision and great skill.

www.herkunftsverband.de - thüringer Rotwurst

Quarter with beach character on the Frankfurt Bridges

The arm of the Frankfurt Bridges above Rosa-Luxemburg-Allee leads up to the Nidda, where the Frankfurt bathing lake is being built in Niddapark. Between the Gourmet Promenade and the bathing lake the architecture is adapted to the colourful lobster houses on Helgoland, the paths are covered with wooden planks instead of water-bound path surfaces, and there is a tea house with Frisian specialities.

Accordingly, at the end of the Gourmet Promenade there is a tower in lighthouse architecture, ground-founded and with a 75sqm shop for fish specialties on the ground floor, a test cooking room on the first floor, followed by three extremely cool designed residential floors and -on the last and penultimate floor- a small restaurant with a focus on "fish and seafood", where there are also very many vegetarian and vegan dishes from the sea. From the restaurant you can enjoy the view of the Manufactory and Gourmet Promenade and look all the way to the river Nidda.

So that the fish specialities shop and the restaurant can be optimally supplied, there is a "fish butcher school" right next to the lighthouse. Even though the fish butcher does not actually exist as a profession, it is still taught here as further training to regular traditional butcher training. After all, there are quite a few butchers in Germany who make sausage from fish, and in Australia there is a first shop that calls itself a "fish butchery". As with butchers and poultry butchers, the aim here is to break fish down into its constituent parts and to use these as extensively as possible in a wide variety of specialities - an approach that is entirely in keeping with sustainability.

The food on offer on the Gourmet Promenade: a firework display of traditional culinary culture

Frankfurt is a very international city, and there are restaurants from numerous countries. The problem is that there is only very rarely the really good original cuisine from a country, mostly it is very simplified dishes. Even for German cuisine, there are hardly any restaurants that offer dishes as we still know them from our grandparents' generation. The reason for this is the same for foreign and local cuisine: Most dishes simply cost too much time - and thus, if you wanted to offer them in a restaurant - too much money. And even if you are willing to spend money on good food, you are more likely to find ten restaurants with novelle cuisine than one that can still prepare a pheasant with dumplings. That's why the focus of cooking education at the Gourmet Promenade Cooking School is on traditional cuisine from around the world.

jette2007 Hamburger Labskaus - www.chefkoch. de

Learning from the best - connecting culinary professionals with citizens

Everyone knows someone who cooks some dish divinely. The narrative of it always follows the same pattern: "I have an aunt, if she cooks. . . ., the whole family comes rushing over" or "I had a fellow student from . . . . when he cooked his traditional food, you could lie down in it, it was so delicious" or "my grandmother could bake . . . , I never ate anything like that again later". Everyone knows this from someone, somehow. And they're dishes that don't cater to individual tastes, but where just about everyone who tries it is equally delighted.

On the Frankfurt Bridges one can recommend such „pearls“ to the cooking school, and they send two of their cooks to the recommended person for a test meal. This person can cook his or her legendary dish in the usual environment, also gets all the ingredients remunerated by the cooking school, and if the cooks find the dish good, the expert cooking citizen is invited to show the cooks exactly how he cooks (or bakes) it in the test cooking room of the lighthouse. The cooks recreate it until they too have perfected it, and then it is put on the menu of cafés and restaurants on the Manufacture and Gourmet Promenade for four weeks. From each dish sold, the expert cooking citizen gets one Euro off and can earn up to 1000 Euros without lifting a finger themselves. After a month the cooking school may use the recipe tax free whenever they want. Every week such test cooking hours can take place. In this way, an intensive exchange takes place between the citizens and the cooking school, and the know-how for traditional dishes (or pastries) from all over the world never runs out for the gourmet chefs. Another magnet for all citizens and tourists in Frankfurt.

The Manufactory and Gourmet Promenade can't get colorful enough: Exotic crafts can also be added

In addition to the traditional crafts listed here, there are other crafts that could be added - because the spatial capacity is there on the North Arm: The Manufactory Promenade could be expanded to include plucked instrument makers, i.e. for instruments such as guitar, harp or zither, violin makers etc. are welcome.

Another direction would be wainwrights, also called wheelwrights. They make vehicles from wood, metal or plastic. Since the number of carriages or carts or even show carriages is decreasing, the number of those who still know how to do this is also dwindling. With the revival of the oldtimer wooden trains on the Frankfurt Bridges, however, a completely new form of demand is emerging, which could save this venerable old craft in a slightly modified form.

Another craft that is actually dying out can get a new lease of life thanks to the Frankfurt Bridges: bookbinding. The reading hobby will be promoted at certain places on the bridges, and bound books will be made available, not tablets with e-books on them. Here, too, demand is likely to arise from the bridge concept.

And last but not least, there are also handicrafts from Europe, which had no or only phased tradition in Germany: silk weaving, alabaster masters, tapestry weavers or even very special things like heliogravure. There would be room for them, too.

Important cooperation partners of the Manufaktur und Gourme-Promenade are the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach (Offenbach University of Art and Design) as well as all vocational schools for traditional crafts in Germany

Products from traditional craftsmanship can be classically designed, but also highly modern and of cool design. By cooperating with students and lecturers from the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, the craft businesses can benefit by getting ideas for sought-after designs for their products. Conversely, the students of the university can acquire craft skills through the cooperation or even have some of their more complicated ideas implemented by the cooperation partners in the first place.

For the training centres of all the listed trades in Germany, cooperative ventures with the training companies on the Manufactory and Gourmet Promenades are also extremely attractive because they offer their students completely new prospects for the future: The bridges in Frankfurt will not go into operation until 10 years after the decision has been made. For pupils or trainees in this period, this means that they could find work there later. In addition, their profession will be upgraded and a customer base will be created for their products in the Rhine-Main region with its high purchasing powe,r and beyond, which was not there before because the offer did not even exist in the Frankfurt metropolis. With the emergence of the Manufactory and Gourmet Promenade, the training centers throughout Germany should therefore have a significantly higher influx of trainees than before.

The Manufacture and Gourmet Promenade attracts apprentices and junior staff for the craftshops on the Frankfurt Bridges

There are complaints everywhere that the appreciation of what is special about handicraft products has been lost. One reason is the change in society to a throwaway society. The quality and work that goes into a handmade product is hardly recognized and acknowledged, and accordingly few people are willing to pay an appropriate price.

The Manufactory and Gourmet Promenade will change this: In such a colourful quarter with masterful and well-equipped training craft businesses as well as a modern vocational school, traditional arts and crafts will receive a boost again. The Frankfurt Bridges, or rather the shops and restaurants run by the bridge company, are potential buyers on the doorstep. And in the middle of Frankfurt with its high purchasing power, the quarter with its creative and varied lifestyle scene is becoming a strong sales driver for the repositioning of handicraft products.

On a large scale, manufacturing by hand is of course no longer competitive with industrial production. However, the special contribution of the Manufacture and Gourmet Promenade is not at all to replace mass production elsewhere, but rather to awaken an awareness among people of the value of craftsmanship: through the beautiful products, the demonstration of their creation (when classes or groups of visitors are allowed to watch the craftsmen at certain times) and also through the opportunity to become active oneself in hobby pop-ups, the test cooking room and repair cafés. In this way, the trend towards a throwaway society can be actively counteracted, while at the same time promoting a preference for high-quality food.

Considering that universities receive billions of dollars in funding, while the skilled trades receive much less funding to encourage the next generation of talent, the Manufacture and Gourmet Promenade represents an excellent investment opportunity in this non-university branch of education.

Conclusion: Promoting old craft traditions on the Frankfurt Bridges increases appreciation for quality products and sustainability

The Manufacture Promenade on the Frankfurt Bridges enriches the citizens' world of experience: Old craft traditions are being revived, and the cooperation of craft businesses with repair cafés helps people to turn away from a purely throwaway society.

In addition, there is the Grourmet Promenade, which offers a food and dining culture that does justice to modern health consciousness, which has recognised the disadvantages of purely industrially processed food.

A connection between the modern city of Frankfurt and the traditional crafts takes place not only through the possibility of shopping for healthy and handmade products; rather, factory tours or courses lead in addition to a further dovetailing with the population.

Die Meisterakademie

Musikpavillions

Hobby-Pop-ups

Bühnenkunst

Bewegung

Buildings and Bridges

Special Quarters

Bridge Diversity