German Romanticism Museum in Frankfurt
- Jakob Schoof
"The art of making an object unknown, and yet known and attractive, therein lies the poetics of romanticism." Thus wrote Novalis, himself renowned poet of German romanticism, in his Fragments and Studies. The statement could have very well been the inspiration for the design of the German Romanticism Museum in Frankfurt. A most curious ensemble was created here by Mäckler Architekten, next door to the house on the street named Großer Hirschgraben, where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born: Three townhouses with eclectically structured rendered facades rise above a plinth of reddish mottled sandstone. At a first glance, the placement of windows obscures the arrangement of floors. The pale yellow facade colour, the light grey hues of the window frames and the upper floors slightly protruding into the streetscape bring to mind the baroque Goethe House next door, destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in 1951. While the latter is a half-timbered structure, the architects of the German Romanticism Museum opted for a cavity wall construction comprised of in-situ poured concrete and aerated concrete block. In certain areas, thermally separated dentil friezes consisting of prefabricated concrete elements dyed red create visual breaks between floors.
