Design against the crisis

A social reform movement, no less, was in demand in Frankfurt am Main in the early 1920s. The architecture of the steadily growing city and its supply infrastructure no longer matched the number of residents: Affordable housing, like green spaces, was in short supply, the alleyways narrow and stuffy, sanitation inadequate. A new Frankfurt was the ambitious wish that Ludwig Landmann, elected Lord Mayor in 1924, began to realise in 1925 with an interdisciplinary team of designers. Until the abrupt end of this modernism on the Main due to the National Socialists' seizure of power, a city-wide concept was developed in conjunction with accelerated industrialisation. This urban planning programme was so far ahead of its time that it can still serve as inspiration for our present day, because 100 years later, our major cities and society as a whole are once again facing the need for a profound transformation.

The Museum Angewandte Kunst is celebrating the anniversary of "Das Neue Frankfurt" and its ongoing relevance by focusing a large part of its annual programme on the ideas of the urban planning programme. The museum has joined forces with a number of local cultural institutions such as the German Architecture Museum, the Historical Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Ernst May Society and the Institute of City History. ‘With the question ‘What was the new Frankfurt? Key questions about the urban planning programme of the 1920s‘, we are opening an initial space on 8 May 2025, which will be set up in the centre of our building and provide information about what the New Frankfurt actually was, who the movers and shakers were, what ideas, role models and core themes this design movement was based on and whether and how they actually changed society,’ says Prof. Matthias Wagner K, Director of the Museum Angewandte Kunst.

The exhibition ‘Yes we care! The New Frankfurt and the question of the common good’, curated by Grit Weber, will, for example, span the arc from the structures and concepts of the time to today's care crisis, which concerns both the unequal distribution of care work between men and women, as well as the distribution of affordable housing and the provision of care services in the city's neighbourhoods. ‘What was unusual about the New Frankfurt was that it did not stop at utopias. (...) Lord Mayor Ludwig Landmann and his colleagues focussed on all areas of life. They had promoted the economic development of the city, expanded the transport infrastructure, significantly improved the provision of basic necessities for all sections of the population and promoted equal rights. Last but not least, they created the basis for the cultural scene to flourish and for Frankfurt to become a hotspot in the Weimar Republic alongside Berlin. The 100th anniversary of the New Frankfurt reminds us that with unity, courage, creativity and determination, it is possible to lay the foundations that will continue to make Frankfurt a city worth living in for the next 100 years, despite bureaucratic restrictions and financial limitations,’ says Dr Christina Treutlein, Managing Director of the Ernst May Gesellschaft e.V..

‘The new Frankfurt’ with all its facets impressively demonstrated how strongly design influences our reality and can initiate democratic processes that contribute to the quality of life. In the 1920s, the team led by urban planner Ernst May, city treasurer Bruno Asch, head of cultural affairs Max Michel and horticultural director Max Brommer developed a city that combined living space, commerce and green spaces in an efficient and pleasant balance. The floor plans of terraced houses were standardised for this purpose, the interior furnishings reduced to the essentials and structured in such a way that they could be mass-produced. This also included the prototype of today's fitted kitchen, the ‘Frankfurt Kitchen’ by architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky - an effective, space- and time-saving built-in furniture programme that was available in three sizes and made ideal use of the available space. The ‘Functional Surface-Mounted Furniture’ by Frank Schuster, Marcel Breuer's ‘Frankfurter Normendrücker’ and the Frankfurt Telephone by Richard Schadewell and Marcel Breuer were also part of the modernist design.

Ernst May and his team developed the ‘Frankfurt assembly method’ for the standardisation and standardisation of building components, which replaced the brick construction method and was also intended to be manageable for unskilled workers: compact pumice concrete slabs were assembled into houses using a modular system. In the magazine ‘Das neue Frankfurt: internationale Monatsschrift für die Probleme kultureller Neugestaltung’, which was published from 1926 to 1933, the requirements were stated in issue 1.1926/1927 under the title ‘Der Weg vom Ziegelmauerwerk zum Frankfurter Montageverfahren’, such as ‘The format of the building components must be such that the greatest possible effect is achieved with the least possible amount of labour’ or ‘The construction time must be reduced to a minimum. Saving time means saving money’. Another special feature of the housing construction programme was that aesthetics and site-specific design should not be neglected despite the standardisation. ‘The building structure should not conceal the construction, but rather derive its beauty from its laws’ was one of the guidelines. Among other things, it was stipulated that the standardised panels should be 3 metres long, 1.10 metres high and 20 metres thick. Prefabricated, they could then be transported to the construction site and assembled in just a few days. ‘The assembly process forces objectivity and clarity in the design,’ according to the extract from the journal. Even though the proportion of new buildings constructed using this method was only around five to ten per cent, around 12,000 new residential units were built in just under five years.

Thanks to its interdisciplinarity, single-mindedness and the collaborative will to design, the public experimental laboratory of modernism in Frankfurt quickly produced a creative repertoire that set new standards in urban planning, social and cultural terms - even typography was freed from all conventions with the development of the ‘Futura’ font by Paul Renner, and Frankfurt am Main received a new city coat of arms in the New Objectivity style by Hans Leistikow.

The effectiveness of design is all the more in demand in the current times of upheaval. In 2025, the exhibition and event programme of the Museum Angewandte Kunst and its partner institutions in the Rhine-Main region will impressively illustrate why the former utopia forms the basis for a relationship between democracy and design. It will also build a bridge to the major cultural project of the World Design Capital Frankfurt Rhein Main 2026, which questions the present and future of the design of societies. Prof Matthias Wagner K, Director of the Museum Angewandte Kunst, was in charge of managing and coordinating Frankfurt am Main's bid to become World Design Capital 2026 and came up with the motto ‘Design for Democracy. Atmospheres for a better life’.

What was the New Frankfurt?
Key questions about the urban planning programme of the 1920s
9 May 2025 to 11 January 2026
Opening: 8 May 2025, 7 pm

Yes we care! The New Frankfurt and the question of the common good
9 May 2025 to 11 January 2026
Opening: 8 May 2025, 7 pm

The dawn of the modern city 1925-1933: Frankfurt, Vienna and Hamburg
A comparison of three models
10 October 2025 to 25 January 2026
Opening: 9 October 2025, 7 p.m.