Poetry and truth - the complexity of the 'New Old Town' and 'Old Sachsenhausen'
An architectural tour for locals and visitors who want to see behind the half-timbered houses on Römerberg and in Old Sachsenhausen.
The Frankfurt city center around the Römerberg can be seen as a kind of architecture museum. In the nucleus of the city, examples of buildings from many different styles can be found. A new 'exhibit' is a piece of the old half-timbered town. This is contrasted with Old Sachsenhausen, where there is still a lot of original building material, but some of it has been poorly maintained and is now being restored.
Until the Second World War, Frankfurt's old town was one of the largest undestroyed half-timbered towns in Germany. However, when looking back wistfully, one tends to overlook the fact that the old town's buildings were very dilapidated and the living conditions were more than poor. After the war, it was decided to build a loose, contemporary housing development and only rebuild a few essential, historically significant buildings. However, it remained difficult over the decades to design the 'Gudd Stubb' - the area between the Römer and the cathedral. On our architectural tour, we will now show the 'New Old Town' built there, or let's say 'new construction of a city district with a high level of memory of the previous buildings there'. The complex was opened in September 2018. The restoration of the old buildings in Alt Sachsenhausen on the other bank of the Main is only just beginning. During our architectural tour, we will explain the building of a residential and office building by the architect Marie-Theres German and 'The Little Knight' and 'Libertine Lindenberg' from Franconian ArchitectsAll three buildings seem to point the way to a symbiosis of old and new.
project selection
New old town
- historical Museum [LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei]
- Architect houses in the Saalgasse [different architects]
- Kunsthalle Schirn (Bangert Jansen Scholz and Schultes)
- 'Stadthaus' [MEURER architects with cba architectes, Luxembourg]
- Museum of Modern Art [Hans Hollein]
- Houses in the old town (various architects)
Sachsenhausen
- New portico - Exhibition Hall for Contemporary Art (Christoph Mäckler Architekten)
- Apartment building Paradiesgasse 13 [Marie-Theres Deutsch Architects]
- 'Kleiner Ritter' (little knight), Libertine Lindenberg [Franken architects


