Union House (Frankfurt am Main)
The trade union building in Frankfurt am Main is a listed office building that was inaugurated in 1931. The skyscraper in Gutleutviertel is now the seat of the German Federation of Trade Unions , the Hesse-Thuringia district and the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main region and the ver.di district of Frankfurt am Main and the region.
In 1901 the ADGB opened the Frankfurt trade union building on the corner of Allerheiligenstrasse and Stoltzestrasse. In the 1920s this building turned out to be too small, so in 1930 it was decided to build a new building.
The architects Taut & Hoffmann designed the plan for a nine-storey office building which, in addition to the union offices, also contained a hotel, restaurants and event halls. Chronologically, the building fell into the era of the New Frankfurt . In terms of urban planning, the project was heavily criticized. Today the 31 meter high trade union building is no longer noticeable in the Frankfurt skyline , but at the time of its construction it was the tallest office building in the city after the IG Farben building (35 m) . It was created in what was then a residential area, the former Holzmannschen Park between Untermainkai and Bürgerstraße. Stylistically, the modern office building in the functionalism style did not fit into the architecture of the district and dominated the cityscape when viewed from the Main . There was a court case that the trade unions could win in the second instance. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court approved the plan, but banned hotel operations and garden restaurants.
The union building was started in 1930 and inaugurated in July 1931 after eleven months of construction. The steel frame building with a column grid of 6.50 m has a flat roof and cost 1.7 million Reichsmarks (in today's currency and purchasing power 6.8 million euros). About 4,000 square meters of office space are available.
After the seizure of power of the NSDAP early 1933 the free trade unions were banned and the house was on 10 May 1933 by the German Labor Front adopted (DAF), who used the house as a "house of labor." The National Socialists planned a monumental extension with a front facing the Untermainkai, but this was never realized.
In 1946 the newly established free trade unions got the house back. The Bürgerstraße, on which the union building is located, was renamed Wilhelm-Leuschner-Straße in memory of the union leader Wilhelm Leuschner . In 1967 IG Metall built its headquarters right next to the trade union building. This building was replaced by a new building in 2003 (the Main Forum high-rise ).
literature
- Max Behne: Max Taut 's trade union building in Frankfurt am Main . In: Wasmuth's monthly magazine for architecture . Volume 15 (1931), issue 11/12, urn : nbn: de: kobv: 109-opus-8391 , pp. 481–496.
- Dietrich Neumann: “The skyscrapers are coming!” German skyscrapers of the twenties. Debates, projects, buildings. Vieweg, Wiesbaden 1995, ISBN 3-528-08815-X .
- Detlev Janik: High-rise buildings in Frankfurt. Race to the clouds. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-7973-0595-8 , page 19f.
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 12.8 ″ N , 8 ° 39 ′ 59.9 ″ E