Exhibition100 Years of The New Frankfurt

Talk of the modernist design movement in Frankfurt often references the political, social and creative upheaval in the city after the First World War. In 1924, Ludwig Landmann was elected Lord Mayor of Frankfurt, and a year later he coined the programmatic term The New Frankfurt to describe the transformation that was occurring in the city. This New Frankfurt not only included an urban and housing construction program, but also shaped a more universal approach regarding product, fashion, interior, industrial and communication design. It aimed to address all areas of human life using new forms and shaping a new urban society in connection with accelerated industrialization. The protagonists of The New Frankfurt movement derived what was so specific for the modern age in Frankfurt from their contemporary experience, rather than from the past: design and social commitment forming a unity. They were less concerned with a dogmatic definition of design principles than with finding the most convincing solution for each case, based solely on the respective needs.

As the core exhibition and initial launch pad at the Museum Angewandte Kunst during 2025 and 2026, the exhibition will raise the following questions: What exactly was The New Frankfurt? Who were the protagonists? What ideas and influences formed the basis of this modernist design movement? What were its key themes, and how did these effectively transform society? Why does the basis for a relationship between democracy and design lie here?

The exhibition consists of a multimedia room in which significant objects from the time of The New Frankfurt, texts and original quotations, images, films, infographics and photographs come together to tell the story of what The New Frankfurt was and will continue to be in a concise form. The questions formulated in this initial room pave the way for more in-depth exhibitions in other parts of the museum, with partner institutions and in the Rhine-Main region; and ultimately extend into the program of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026, thus providing an updated perspective on The New Frankfurt and other national and international design movements that have always led to changes in societal models.

Curator: Grit Weber

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The exhibition Yes, we care. The New Frankfurt and the Question of the Common Good is dedicated to the topic of care for the common good and welfare – its institutions and associations, its people, concepts and initiatives during the 1920s. At the same time, it draws a connection to today’s care crisis, which is not only evident in the debate about the unequal distribution of care work between men and women, but also in access to affordable housing and the provision of care services in urban districts.

In the 1920s, Frankfurt am Main developed a pioneering urban planning and housing program. It continued the previous urbanization processes that had taken shape as social urban development at a high level: by founding and further developing municipal institutions such as welfare, sports and health offices, by professionalizing youth and health care, by structuring the educational system, which initiated pedagogical reforms in the school system and also provided education for women and vocational training in those years with rooms and programs, and by attempting to simplify domestic work through central laundry areas and heating systems. Ernst May put it in these terms: “The maintenance of human health, however, as the most precious asset of a city, has to influence all administrative measures.”

Care work yesterday and today: What institutions, initiatives and concepts relating to education, the household, social welfare and health existed 100 years ago and what impact did they have on people’s everyday lives? Do the ideas and concepts of The New Frankfurt offer suggestions for solving the current crisis in the care and nursing professions? Can they be role models for effective countermeasures in times of political polarization, the lack of affordable housing and the manifestation of poverty? With the exhibition Yes, we care, we want to once again debate the value of a social urban society and provide positive impetus for the present and the future. The exhibition presents objects, texts, photographs, film and audio contributions from the areas of education, household, social affairs and health from the 1920s and links the phenomena with current experiences and questions about our global future.

Curator: Grit Weber

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The anniversary of The New Frankfurt offers a compelling opportunity to reflect on the present by asking what visions of the future were embedded in the original urban planning program and to what extent fundamental social change must also be accompanied by an aesthetic transformation free from imitation.

How do emerging designers at HfG Offenbach engage with The New Frankfurt? Which aspects resonate with them today, and which call for critical examination in light of the present?

An exhibition in cooperation between HfG Offenbach and the Museum Angewandte Kunst, developed within the master’s program “Design Curating and Criticism”, led by Prof. Matthias Wagner K and realized by students Emin Aksakal, Christina Isabel Anderson, Kasimir Bamberger, Sebastian Blaauwbroek, Anna Barthold, Marie Bünner, Lorenzo Sante Carella, Taron Garlichs, Franca Hoßfeld, Safia Amanda Jahn, Alptug Kocatürk, Alexey Kosin, Clara Maldener, Camille Münch, Eleonora Schilling, Clara Schneider, Ji Eun Shin, Gilberto Vivenzio, and Vivien Weindl.

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On 24 September 2025, Jazzklub will launch as a three-month hybrid exhibition, concert and event project on the theme of “jazz” at the Museum Angewandte Kunst. At the center of a larger exhibition parcours, a pop-up jazz club will be created, which will become the venue for more than 60 concerts, events and workshops in cooperation with Jazz Montez, an organizer that has very successfully been organizing jazz concerts at various locations in Frankfurt am Main since 2016.

Today, jazz can be understood as a diverse field of music that has fuelled generations with discussions on playing techniques, styles and social relevance. Against this background, the project is dedicated to both historical contexts and current issues. The history of the “Jazz City Frankfurt”, from the successes of African-American bands and musicians at the beginning of the 20th century, to the establishment of the jazz class at Dr Hoch’s Conservatory in 1928, the influence of US jazz ensembles after 1945, to independent style developments such as those of Albert Mangelsdorff, forms a reference for today’s discussions on questions of origin, development and future perspectives for this music. The exhibition parcour encourages visitors to track down historical contexts and reflect on them with today’s perspectives on the significance, diversity and development of jazz. The concert and event program incorporates, supplements and comments on themes from the exhibition. At the same time, discourses on musical heritage, cultural potential and contemporary practices in jazz are made accessible.

The exhibtion parcour presents musicological and journalistic contributions, perspectives from film, photography and educational practice, musical examples and interactive stations. A central aspect is the presentation of the activities of committed players, clubs, associations, institutes, filmmakers and musicians from Frankfurt. Jazz will be showcased here as a socio-cultural practise and the connection between communal, subjective and freely creative processes from which it emerges and becomes exemplary.

Not only Frankfurt, but also Hamburg and Vienna experienced an era of forced reform between 1925 and 1933/34, which was brought to an end by National Socialism and Austrofascism. These three cities wrote urban and housing history, albeit in different ways:

- in Frankfurt, the anti-urban New Frankfurt planned by Ernst May and his team with its low-rise housing estates in the countryside, inserted into an “urban landscape” of “Trabanten” and green belts;
- in Vienna, Red Vienna with the “Gemeindebauten”, i.e. urban, sometimes monumental complexes in dense multi-storey housing with integrated communal facilities;
- in Hamburg, the residential city of Hamburg structured by Fritz Schumacher’s “model urban development” with half-open blocks of multi-storey housing.

The juxtaposition in the exhibition at the Museum Angewandte Kunst offers the opportunity to critically question established narratives. The comparison will make the characteristics of each model and the differences between them all the clearer. One hundred years later, the housing supply is once again in crisis, particularly in Germany. The housing shortage is reaching dramatic proportions, particularly in the major urban centers, and not just for low-income earners. A look back at the exemplary pioneering achievements of the years 1924-33 in Frankfurt, Vienna and Hamburg can raise awareness of the current crisis and support approaches to overcoming it.

Curator: Wolfgang Voigt, formerly DAM, Deutsches Architektur Museum

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