In my previous post 'Boob Tube or the New Birmingham' I made reference to the interface with New Street, High Street and the new Bull Ring feeling like Frankfurt, it is only fair that I also share my impressions of Frankfurt, this is a piece that has existed in notes and memories from a visit to the city over 15 years ago and has never found a reason to be written up...until now.
What I find interesting looking back over old notes are the observations made from an English perspective, and how far behind we are in terms of planning in England. In 1998 the Midland Metro was a new concept and a bit of a joke in the local press. Today a scaled down new scheme for the long awaited expansion has been released by Centro, see: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2013/09/04/glimpse-at-31m-midland-metro-extension-through-birmingham/
At Bockenhiem Worte, is the university building with its student halls that are to be home for the next few days. This part of the university is ideally situated, adjacent a market square, main shopping street, McDonald's, bus route, tramway, and underground station (U-Bahn). Across the square stands a tower built in the middle ages looking like something out of the brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, a former watch tower at the town’s edge, the city wall is no longer there, the town’s edge has since moved as the city has expended. In the distance stands a communications tower with flying saucer and traffic cone. German students are very sociable, we are welcomed by at least twelve sitting around a large circular table in the large communal kitchen area, sharing cigarettes, everyone smokes here.
Below in the square streams on people emerge from the U-Bahn station, browse around the stalls at the open air market, fresh olives seem to to be the favourite, and walk across the square to hop on one of the numerous and frequent trams and buses that pass by the end of square. Everything seems to be well joined up here, mixed use is not an issue because it was never separated out.
A walk between the market stalls and into the U-Bahn through the most striking entrance, a railway carriage tilted at about thirty five degrees and driven into the ground, enter through the end and move downward along an escalator running through the carriage, into a light and spotlessly clean space to purchase tickets and proceed to the platform to be board a tram??? yes exactly the same as those on the surface running under ground. A friendly female voice announces arrival at each station over the on-board public address system, and very swiftly our destination at Kontsablewache is reached. A walk up the steps to be addressed by a distressed pigeon, cooing at its mate laying dead on the pavement, looking like an aerial courtship display has resulted in a fatal collision with the ironwork that supports the canopy to the station entrance.
The square at Kontsablewache is surrounded by modern buildings unashamedly sitting alongside historic ones, this is a large square with a stage being dismantled from a event that has just finished. The bustle of passing traffic gives the feeling of a very lively city centre. A short walk off the square and into the Medieval city centre dominated by the intricately carved spire of the Der Kaieserdom St Bartholomaus. It is lunchtime and Dom Platz is absolutely buzzing, it is April and not exactly warm but the locals are happy to sit outside the restaurants and cafes, 'doing lunch' and sharing cigarettes, it is very much a smoking culture here. The facades above the restaurants look every part the romantic chocolate box image that signifies the Europe of the brothers Grimm. I later learnt that the square had been bombed during the war and had been rebuilt exactly as it was before. The new trams running along the cobbled streets between the Medieval Buildings create a sense of juxtaposition where the new and old coexist in balance with each other.
Sunday afternoon and the Birmingham Pub is showing F1 Grand Prix, Coulthard in the McLaren versus Schumacher a thrilling race which would be more interesting to watch it the management did not keep switching off every time that Schumacher lost the lead. Race over, Schumacher won, luckily, I don't think we would have been allowed to stay if he had not, and time to look around the rest of the main shopping area. The Birmingham Pub is situated in the middle of Ziel, a totally pedestrianised area, a street linking Konstablerwache at the East end and Hauptwache at the West end, I love these German names, one that absolutely leaps off of the fascia is Peek & Cloppenburg for no other reason than conjuring up the image of the opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail...clop clop clop! clop clop clop! I don't think they sell the two halves of coconut though.
The most contemporary intervention along the Strasse is the Zeilgallerie, architecturally a high-tech playground designed by Kramm + Strigl, out of the same vein as Archigram, Piano, Rogers, Grimshaw. Externally a folded frame less glass facade defines the front of a narrow central space of the retail environment that is dominated by escalators and glass lifts and expressive steel structure with pin joints and cables. The rubber moving handrail of the escalator usually black, is red. A ride up to the top level, ten in all, and a slow walk down a continual slope lined with shops selling anything from home accessories to comic books. A ride in the glass lift back up to the topmost level and a walkway threads its way around the atrium to emerge outside to a rooftop observation deck, and the panorama of Frankfurt am Main spreads out below. Glass towers pop up from among the sea of tiled rooftops and tree lined Strasses in a scene dominated by Foster's elegant Commerzbank Tower, which at 56 storeys is the tallest building in Germany, and well worth a closer look.
In New York an observation that was continually repeated was that the skyscraper builders were continually extruding blocks from the grid and merely making ornamental tops to them to mark their presence on the skyline. With the exception of very few it seems as though the designers were unable to make their buildings meet the ground. On walking through Frankfurt’s financial centre the skyline is dominated by skyscrapers, some of them seem pretty anonymous, however on the ground there is wealth of sculptures in the plazas outside them. The most dramatic being the Commerzbank Tower, here the design of the tower extends to the space that the tower sits in, it is a plaza slotted in behind the historic buildings that make up the street frontage.
The main entrance to the triangular tower is via a long, wide, flight of steps that rises in procession from the street forming a kind of mediating space between the street level and the entrance level, with sculptural almost triangular slots that abut the adjoining buildings. In essence the landscape that the tower sits in has been carved out of the existing fabric to make a space between two buildings and a great deal of care has been taken here. allowing this prominent tower to actually touch the ground really delicately. The setting back of the tower from the street edge makes it a successful intervention into the urban fabric.
On the opposite side of the sunken plaza that opens out onto a large public square, and reads as a secondary entrance to the tower but contains the plaza restaurant and crèche, that further assists in the sitting into the urban grain another sculpture that is actually a signage screen for the building rotates at closing time, slowly extending on both sides to close the plaza and complete the street frontage to Gross Galastrasse, nicely done.
On reflection The Frankfurt of 1998 was way ahead of its twin Birmingham, and in some ways it still is.
What I find interesting looking back over old notes are the observations made from an English perspective, and how far behind we are in terms of planning in England. In 1998 the Midland Metro was a new concept and a bit of a joke in the local press. Today a scaled down new scheme for the long awaited expansion has been released by Centro, see: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2013/09/04/glimpse-at-31m-midland-metro-extension-through-birmingham/
At Bockenhiem Worte, is the university building with its student halls that are to be home for the next few days. This part of the university is ideally situated, adjacent a market square, main shopping street, McDonald's, bus route, tramway, and underground station (U-Bahn). Across the square stands a tower built in the middle ages looking like something out of the brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, a former watch tower at the town’s edge, the city wall is no longer there, the town’s edge has since moved as the city has expended. In the distance stands a communications tower with flying saucer and traffic cone. German students are very sociable, we are welcomed by at least twelve sitting around a large circular table in the large communal kitchen area, sharing cigarettes, everyone smokes here.
Below in the square streams on people emerge from the U-Bahn station, browse around the stalls at the open air market, fresh olives seem to to be the favourite, and walk across the square to hop on one of the numerous and frequent trams and buses that pass by the end of square. Everything seems to be well joined up here, mixed use is not an issue because it was never separated out.
A walk between the market stalls and into the U-Bahn through the most striking entrance, a railway carriage tilted at about thirty five degrees and driven into the ground, enter through the end and move downward along an escalator running through the carriage, into a light and spotlessly clean space to purchase tickets and proceed to the platform to be board a tram??? yes exactly the same as those on the surface running under ground. A friendly female voice announces arrival at each station over the on-board public address system, and very swiftly our destination at Kontsablewache is reached. A walk up the steps to be addressed by a distressed pigeon, cooing at its mate laying dead on the pavement, looking like an aerial courtship display has resulted in a fatal collision with the ironwork that supports the canopy to the station entrance.
The square at Kontsablewache is surrounded by modern buildings unashamedly sitting alongside historic ones, this is a large square with a stage being dismantled from a event that has just finished. The bustle of passing traffic gives the feeling of a very lively city centre. A short walk off the square and into the Medieval city centre dominated by the intricately carved spire of the Der Kaieserdom St Bartholomaus. It is lunchtime and Dom Platz is absolutely buzzing, it is April and not exactly warm but the locals are happy to sit outside the restaurants and cafes, 'doing lunch' and sharing cigarettes, it is very much a smoking culture here. The facades above the restaurants look every part the romantic chocolate box image that signifies the Europe of the brothers Grimm. I later learnt that the square had been bombed during the war and had been rebuilt exactly as it was before. The new trams running along the cobbled streets between the Medieval Buildings create a sense of juxtaposition where the new and old coexist in balance with each other.
Sunday afternoon and the Birmingham Pub is showing F1 Grand Prix, Coulthard in the McLaren versus Schumacher a thrilling race which would be more interesting to watch it the management did not keep switching off every time that Schumacher lost the lead. Race over, Schumacher won, luckily, I don't think we would have been allowed to stay if he had not, and time to look around the rest of the main shopping area. The Birmingham Pub is situated in the middle of Ziel, a totally pedestrianised area, a street linking Konstablerwache at the East end and Hauptwache at the West end, I love these German names, one that absolutely leaps off of the fascia is Peek & Cloppenburg for no other reason than conjuring up the image of the opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail...clop clop clop! clop clop clop! I don't think they sell the two halves of coconut though.
The most contemporary intervention along the Strasse is the Zeilgallerie, architecturally a high-tech playground designed by Kramm + Strigl, out of the same vein as Archigram, Piano, Rogers, Grimshaw. Externally a folded frame less glass facade defines the front of a narrow central space of the retail environment that is dominated by escalators and glass lifts and expressive steel structure with pin joints and cables. The rubber moving handrail of the escalator usually black, is red. A ride up to the top level, ten in all, and a slow walk down a continual slope lined with shops selling anything from home accessories to comic books. A ride in the glass lift back up to the topmost level and a walkway threads its way around the atrium to emerge outside to a rooftop observation deck, and the panorama of Frankfurt am Main spreads out below. Glass towers pop up from among the sea of tiled rooftops and tree lined Strasses in a scene dominated by Foster's elegant Commerzbank Tower, which at 56 storeys is the tallest building in Germany, and well worth a closer look.
In New York an observation that was continually repeated was that the skyscraper builders were continually extruding blocks from the grid and merely making ornamental tops to them to mark their presence on the skyline. With the exception of very few it seems as though the designers were unable to make their buildings meet the ground. On walking through Frankfurt’s financial centre the skyline is dominated by skyscrapers, some of them seem pretty anonymous, however on the ground there is wealth of sculptures in the plazas outside them. The most dramatic being the Commerzbank Tower, here the design of the tower extends to the space that the tower sits in, it is a plaza slotted in behind the historic buildings that make up the street frontage.
The main entrance to the triangular tower is via a long, wide, flight of steps that rises in procession from the street forming a kind of mediating space between the street level and the entrance level, with sculptural almost triangular slots that abut the adjoining buildings. In essence the landscape that the tower sits in has been carved out of the existing fabric to make a space between two buildings and a great deal of care has been taken here. allowing this prominent tower to actually touch the ground really delicately. The setting back of the tower from the street edge makes it a successful intervention into the urban fabric.
On the opposite side of the sunken plaza that opens out onto a large public square, and reads as a secondary entrance to the tower but contains the plaza restaurant and crèche, that further assists in the sitting into the urban grain another sculpture that is actually a signage screen for the building rotates at closing time, slowly extending on both sides to close the plaza and complete the street frontage to Gross Galastrasse, nicely done.
On reflection The Frankfurt of 1998 was way ahead of its twin Birmingham, and in some ways it still is.
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