May-Settlements

The New Frankfurt (Neue Frankfurt), a housing settlement project with affordable residences, facilitated a life in air, light and open space. Ernst May, an architect and the departmental head of settlements for the city of Frankfurt from 1925 to 1930, implemented one of the most comprehensive building programmes of the Weimar Republic. Within this framework, groundbreaking settlements with approximately 15,000 residences were built with the participation of renowned architects such as Walter Gropius. The functional design of the residential blocks and terraced houses has created standards that are still followed to the present day. One such standard is the “Frankfurt Kitchen”, the world’s first built-in kitchen, created by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. May’s comprehensive concept shaped urban and private lifestyles, and relieved the housing shortage within a short period of time through a streamlined construction process. By 1930, the settlements Römerstadt, Westhausen in Praunheim, Höhenblick on the Ginnheimer Hang and Bruchfeldstraße in Niederrad had arisen along the Nidda Valley, in addition to the settlement Am Bornheimer Hang and later the Hellerhof settlement in Gallus. Today, the settlements are internationally respected as examples of early modernism in Germany, along with the Weißenhof Settlement in Stuttgart and the Bauhaus in Dessau. 

In the Ernst May House in Römerstadt the Ernst May Society (ernst-may-gesellschaft) documents the architect’s work. The two-storey terraced house at the address Im Burgfeld 136 has been restored as a historical monument, including a reconstructed kitchen and flower garden, and can be viewed by people with an interest in architecture.