October 1, 2024
We are pleased to announce the opening of the “The Frankfurt Prototype”, an innovative building project of Städelschule in cooperation with the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (UAS) and the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 at 6pm.
A small public market hall on the first floor, living and working spaces for students on the second floor and a large green shelf extension form the experimental building “The Frankfurt Prototype”, which will be on public display for three months, starting October 2, in the courtyard of the Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut and Naturmuseum Frankfurt.
It was designed by students of the Städelschule and the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (UAS) together with engineers and architects as well as researchers from the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung. The project focuses on developing novel typologies of affordable, sustainable housing that encourage new forms of living, working and spending time together in times of climate crisis and a fundamental change in the use of public space and the city. “The Frankfurt Prototype” is developed under the auspices of the Lord Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main, Mike Josef.
The base has been built of salvaged old steel, the living units above with used formwork wood, to keep CO2 emissions of the construction work as low as possible. The small market hall, a “public living room” on the first floor of “The Frankfurt Prototype”, can become a theater stage, an exhibition venue or an actual market where sustainable agricultural products will be offered. The upper floors consist of modular, prefabricated residential units that are covered with used formwork wood; unlike usual containers they can be flexibly interconnected to accommodate various forms of use. The Prototype will also be home to the “Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan (CCAA) in Exile”, an initiative of Afghan painter and former director of the CCAA, Rahraw Omarzad, who lives in exile near Frankfurt, with twenty of his students. A “green urban filter” presents the students’ more radical visions of a life with and in nature.
Dr. Niklas Maak, initiator of the project and visiting professor at the Städelschule, Prof. Dr. Barbara Clausen, new Rector of the Städelschule, Carsten Kratz, President of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, Prof. Dr. Brigitte Franzen, Co-initator of the project at Senckenberg and new President of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach as well as Prof. Heinrich Lessing, Frankfurt UAS, will give introductory speeches.
“The Frankfurt Prototype“ was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur, LOEWE-Exploration 5, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Schöpflin Stiftung, Heinz und Gisela Friederichs Stiftung, and Crespo Foundation. Additional support was provided by Bernd Meÿ, Städelschule Portikus e.V. and Stiftung ohne Titel, 2016.
We would like to thank Barkow Leibinger architects and Schneider+Schumacher architects as well as Arup engineering for their commitment and help during the realization of the project.
