New construction everywhere

Thomas Edelmann: The ideas of New Frankfurt were realised on a city-wide scale from 1925 onwards. How is it that, unlike the Bauhaus, comparatively little is known about this cultural and political project of modernism 100 years later?

Christina Treutlein: That's probably also related to Ernst May. He went to the Soviet Union in 1930 to design new cities. After it became politically impossible for him and his group of architects to continue working there, he couldn't return to Germany. Because the National Socialists were already in power there. Because of his Jewish roots, his work for New Frankfurt and his work in the Soviet Union, he would have been marginalised and persecuted. He became a farmer in Africa, later an architect and urban planner, and spent the war years there. Returning to Germany was not easy, and it was not until the late 1950s that he was recognised in Germany as an influential architect, urban planner and consultant. Because of his past in the Soviet Union and then in Africa, there were initially reservations in post-war Germany. The biographies of Walter Gropius, the founding director of the Bauhaus, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the last director of the Bauhaus, on the other hand, were linked to successes in teaching and architecture in the USA, where both went when they were denied commissions in the Nazi state. We are all influenced by the West and America here. That made it so much easier to continue and pass on the history of the Bauhaus. So you could say that it has to do with the decision made by Gropius and May about where to go when they no longer had any prospects in Germany. That influenced their later impact on history.

Would another after-effect have been conceivable?

Christina Treutlein: Absolutely! Frankfurt is underestimated. Everyone talks about the Bauhaus, where great ideas were developed. But due to historical developments, some things were overlooked. For example, the Frankfurt Art School had an educational programme that was just as revolutionary as that of the Bauhaus in Dessau. The reform of art schools was the starting point for both. In the 1920s, people were considering how to train designers and what should be taught. The Bauhaus offered one solution, while another was developed in Frankfurt. The director was Fritz Wichert, who was in contact with Gropius, among others, and was familiar with his concepts. Wichert merged the Städelschule and the School of Arts and Crafts, but set different priorities, promoting fine art much more strongly. Wichert believed that not everything should be lumped together. He saw little point in free art being incorporated into other areas. The art school in Frankfurt had its own master classes, and Max Beckmann, a prominent example, was given his own master studio here in 1925. This made Frankfurt a much more attractive location for many teachers and students than the Bauhaus in Dessau. There was real competition. Later, the merger was dissolved, and the Städelschule still exists today. The revolutionary training centre, which was very important for the New Frankfurt, no longer exists in this form. Important designers worked here, experimenting with a modern, contemporary style. In this respect, it is a pity that no one remembers how important this school was.

Adolf Meyer and Christian Dell are among the designers who previously taught at the Bauhaus and decided to move to Frankfurt to join a new constellation...

Christina Treutlein: ... this also goes for schoolchildren. What was missing was a catchy name and a distinctive location. Martin Elsaesser had a design for the art school, which was to be built right on the banks of the Main River. After a visit to Dessau in 1927, Elsaesser radicalised his ideas. An architectural icon would have been created here, taking up and further developing Gropius' idea of the glass curtain wall.

Between 1925 and 1930, Frankfurt underwent a planned urban expansion within five years, with the construction of housing estates comprising around 12,000 to 15,000 flats. How was it possible to build so much so quickly? What were the political and biographical conditions that made this possible?

Christina Treutlein: The serial construction method was tested in 1927 in the Praunheim housing estate. Since you asked about biographical references: May worked as the director of the Silesian Home in Breslau before coming to Frankfurt. There he was confronted with the problem of huge streams of refugees who flocked to Silesia after the end of the war. Many apartments had to be built in a very short time. In 1922, Felix Philipp, the head of the Central Office for Refugee Welfare in Silesia, had the idea of bringing barracks that had been used as soldiers' camps and military hospitals during the First World War to Silesia. May and his team were tasked with turning the prefabricated wooden elements into components for residential buildings. This was his first encounter with prefabrication in housing construction. May and his team brought these ideas back to Frankfurt and developed them further. However, people tend to forget how important Ludwig Landmann was, who was elected mayor in 1924. He had been head of the department for economics, transport and housing since 1916 and was familiar with both the potential and the problems of the city.

Why is it so crucial?

Christina Treutlein: He prepared for New Frankfurt for a long time. In his writings, which he published while he was head of the Department of Economic Affairs and Housing, he advocated serial construction. He promoted the New Building style, which was actually implemented, and this was planned well in advance by Ludwig Landmann. He was convinced that if we wanted to build cheaply, we had to develop factories that produced prefabricated components for houses. When he was elected mayor, he was able to implement all of this and brought Bruno Asch on board as treasurer and Ernst May as head of the Department of Urban Development.

What would need to happen today to ensure that more housing is built, and above all, that it is built to such a high standard that people will still be looking at it in 100 years' time and saying: this is something special?

Christina Treutlein: People and their needs must be the starting point. That was the key point in New Frankfurt. This becomes clear when comparing the floor plans in the residential buildings of New Frankfurt. The May House, where we are now, was intended for the more affluent, while the apartment buildings on the other side of the street were intended for working-class families. But the floor plans of the bedrooms are almost the same size. The designers did not look at the family's budget and then develop the rooms accordingly, but took their needs as the starting point. People need to sleep. They need a bed, a wardrobe and a bedside table, all of which have certain dimensions. This determines the size of the room – in terraced houses as well as in apartment buildings.

And that's not all?

Christina Treutlein: Human needs also extend to the social environment. The settlements are embedded in green spaces. Ideally, every house has a garden, a roof terrace or a balcony. There are local recreation areas right outside the door. The settlement had an infrastructure, and social spaces were also planned. This was not always realised. Unfortunately, many churches and, above all, community centres were not built for cost reasons. But they were included in the plans, as were kindergartens and schools. This was the case, for example, in Römerstadt, where Hadrianstraße, with a school, twelve shops including a café and a doctor's surgery, formed the social centre of the housing estate. Needs as the starting point for the planning and construction of housing estates. Looking at many new residential areas today, it is striking that this broader view of living, which contributes to a sense of well-being, is missing. This is now being rediscovered. We are visited by many students who come to see how settlements and flats were designed in the 1920s in order to gain inspiration for sustainable planning today.

We talked about how New Frankfurt is much less well known today than the Bauhaus. But what is the situation in Frankfurt itself? In Berlin, housing estates from the 1920s have been renovated in line with conservation guidelines. As a result, six Berlin housing estates have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2008. How is it that Frankfurt and the housing associations are allowing some housing estates to fall into disrepair?

Christina Treutlein: Seeing well-renovated housing estates in other cities makes me happy to see how much appreciation there is for the architectural heritage of the 1920s. There are many examples that show that renovating buildings in line with conservation guidelines is by no means uneconomical. When I see neglected housing estates in Frankfurt, I wonder why the value of these buildings was not recognised for so long. One of my theories is that so many flats and public buildings were constructed in Frankfurt that people simply took it for granted. It was normal to live in a house like this, to be in a housing estate like this, to have a building like this on your doorstep. Walking through Frankfurt, you come across buildings from the New Frankfurt era at every turn. When something is so normal, you may lose sight of the fact that it is something special. The monument preservation authority and ABG Frankfurt Holding are now working more closely together. If you walk down Im Burgfeld street in Römerstadt and look at the houses, you will see that they are now being renovated with a different approach. But there is still a lot of room for improvement. ABG tries to think economically, and monument preservation costs money, but it also improves the quality of living. The issue of sustainability should also be given greater weight in decision-making. Nevertheless, ABG is a municipal housing company that is still building many new flats that are urgently needed.

In Frankfurt, 100 years ago, a large group of architects succeeded in reinterpreting the idea of the city in a contemporary way. Is such a project still conceivable today? Which elements from that time can we integrate into planning and urban design today? Which ideas from the May era have we rightly abandoned?

Christina Treutlein: In Frankfurt in 1925, there was a strong sense of community when Ernst May was appointed city councillor for urban expansion, building construction and housing. He put together an effective team of young architects to implement his ideas and those of Landmann. If you look at the building applications, some of them were approved after the houses had already been built. Rules and bureaucracy were handled very differently back then. On the one hand, this sped up construction. On the other hand, it is of course problematic to circumvent rules and dictate a certain way of life to people with rigid floor plans.

But today there is a different context?

Christina Treutlein: People were more willing to take risks and try new things. What does it mean for architecture and urban planning when prefabricated buildings are constructed in a factory-like manner? At the time, it was not foreseeable that the buildings would still be standing 100 years later. This development speaks to the courage of the architects.

What role can the Ernst May Society play in introducing the TikTok and Instagram generation to the modern lifestyle of the 1920s?

Christina Treutlein: The fact alone that we have a house like this where you can come in and try things out is something that inspires young people. Here, you're not standing in front of a wall like in a museum; instead, we're sitting here at a table, on furniture that was created in the context of New Frankfurt. Here, you can garden, fold down the ironing board in the kitchen: you can experience it. It's not a condescending, frontal lecture, but something you can participate in. This allows us to interest visitors in the ideas of the 1920s and encourage them to consider: what does this mean for me today? Having a fitted kitchen is now completely normal. So is being able to put together your own furniture however you like. The fact that this is where it all began is still fascinating today. A place like this offers great potential for stimulating the creativity of a new generation.

In your dissertation, you focused on a relatively unknown protagonist of the New Frankfurt, Carl-Hermann Rudloff. What was his role in this network?

Christina Treutlein: Mr Rudloff was already a close colleague of Ernst May in Silesia. It seems that the two of them got on well on a personal level from the outset. May commissioned Mr Rudloff to design and develop his house in Frankfurt. It is a great sign of trust when an architect involves a colleague in such a personal project. Rudloff became chief architect at ABG, the stock corporation for small flats. This municipal housing association built a large part of the housing estates and houses that belong to New Frankfurt. At the very beginning, there was a close relationship between ABG and the building authority. The architects sat down together and developed the standard plans for floor plans, kitchens, etc. A separation only occurred when ABG grew larger and larger and moved into its own premises on Elbestraße. As a result, ABG created a parallel structure to the Building Authority. Now ABG also designed furniture and developed its own types. Rudloff and his team in his construction office designed further types and houses, including iconic projects such as ‘Zickzackhausen’, a block of flats with a community centre in Niederrad. In Römerstadt, the apartment block with shops and characteristic round ends on Hadrianstraße was also designed by him. This very striking building is also typical of Rudloff's style. With his signature style, he had a decisive influence on the New Frankfurt movement.

How did you rediscover him?

Christina Treutlein: My task was to academically examine his legacy, which Rudloff's heirs had handed over to the Ernst May Society, and to classify his oeuvre. But I am interested in more than that, namely in showing that it was not Ernst May alone who built New Frankfurt. Many exhibitions and publications focus primarily on May. They forget that Ernst May was the organiser who brought together and motivated a large group of architects, all of them strong individualists, to develop the new city here. But he did not pick up a pencil and draw the details himself. That was done by the many architects he worked with. This historical fact has been neglected in previous historiography and in the external perception of New Frankfurt. I was surprised by the detailed design work and the determination to implement what was recognised as right. If there was a wrong radiator in a room, it had to be replaced, Rudloff insisted.

What is the situation today?

Christina Treutlein: I am not an architect. But today, it is hardly possible to improvise in the construction process, as excessive regulation blocks a lot of creativity. When you walk through the May House, you can see and understand the handrails and clothes rails. Carl-Hermann Rudloff drew small plans for them too. In fact, they are gas pipes that were used in an unexpected way. Creative thinking and consideration went into how existing materials could be used. Today, there are certainly standards that prohibit this. Back then, architects were free to engage with such details and work with them.

Next year, Frankfurt will be the World Design Capital, focusing on topics related to democracy and design. Do you see potential for innovation there?

Christina Treutlein: I am excited to see what Frankfurt will achieve as World Design Capital. The ernst-may-gesellschaft would also like to contribute. Frankfurt has long been a city of design, with the 1920s playing an important role in this. However, it will not only be about Frankfurt, but also about the Rhine/Main region, for example with the Offenbach University of Art and Design. So there is already a tradition that can be further developed as World Design Capital. Many young, innovative people here in the region are aware of the roots, but want to shape the future with today's means. This is underlined by the World Design Capital project. Perhaps this will bring about an upswing in developing new things, continuing the tradition and making it a little more lively again.

What was New Frankfurt? Key questions about the urban planning programme of the 1920s
Until 11 January 2026

Yes, we care. New Frankfurt and the question of the common good
Until 11 January 2026

Museum of Applied Arts
Schaumainkai 17 60594 Frankfurt
Tue, Thu – Sun, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Wed 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.