Frankfurt am Main: Ernst-May-Haus

1927 – 1928

Architect: Ernst May

Im Burgfeld 136, Siedlung Römerstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

The Ernst May House is a model house in the Römerstadt housing development in Frankfurt am Main, built between 1927 and 1928 according to plans by Ernst May. It has been open to the public since the summer of 2010, following extensive renovation and restoration work.

Architect and Urban Planner Ernst May

Architect and urban planner Ernst Georg May was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1886. After studying architecture in Darmstadt and Munich, he completed an internship with Raymond Unwin in London, where he studied the garden city concept of Ebenezer Howard.

In 1912 he went into business for himself with Clemens Musch in Frankfurt am Main.

Breslau

From February 1919, director of the building department of the Schlesisches Heim and technical and artistic director of the building department of the Schlesische Landgesellschaft in Breslau.

From 1921, technical director of the newly founded non-profit housing association Schlesische Heimstätte in Breslau.

Frankfurt am Main

In the spring of 1925, May applied for the position of city planning officer for urban expansion, building construction, and housing development in Frankfurt, which was advertised on the initiative of Lord Mayor Ludwig Landmann and which he began in September 1925.

As the city’s chief building official, May was responsible for all municipal building tasks; he headed the building office (with the departments of typing and building advice) and the housing office (with the departments of urban and regional planning); he was responsible for gardens and cemeteries, property management, and the building police; and as a member of the city’s personnel commission, he could appoint suitable employees.

Neues Frankfurt

During his five years in office, which ended in 1930, May created the so-called Neues Frankfurt. On the basis of a ten-year housing program adopted by the city council in 1925, he developed a general development plan (1926) that, following the English model, envisioned the new housing estates as largely independent satellite settlements in green surroundings.

Between 1926 and 1930, May and his colleagues (including the architects and urban planners Eugen Blanck, Herbert Boehm, Max Cetto, Martin Elsaesser, Werner Hebebrand, Ferdinand Kramer, Franz Röckle, Carl-Hermann Rudloff, Gottlob Schaupp, Wilhelm Schütte, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Walter Schwagenscheidt, Mart Stam and Franz Thyriot, the landscape architects Max Bromme and Leberecht Migge and the church architect Martin Weber) designed more than 20 estates with a total of about 15. 000 apartments.

The rapid implementation of the overall plan for each of these large housing estates, most of which were designed under May’s direction, was achieved through extensive standardization and rationalization of construction methods.

Ernst May House

The Ernst May House in the Römerstadt estate is a replica model house acquired by the Ernst May Society in 2005. It was restored to its original condition in 2009 and has been open to visitors ever since.

Floor Plan and Concept

Ernst May designed the house as a residential building with a full basement, five rooms and a garden for a small family.

The two-storey row house is a conventional, plastered masonry building with a single-pitch flat roof in timber construction. The basement has a slab ceiling and the first floor has a wooden beam ceiling.

On the first floor are the family’s living quarters, consisting of a dining room off the kitchen, which is only 8 square meters, and a smaller living room.

Upstairs there is a master bedroom with direct access to the daylight bathroom, an adjoining children’s room and a bedroom.

The rooms are connected by doors. The terrace and garden are accessible from both the dining room and the basement.

Condition before restoration

The house had single-glazed windows in wooden frames, plywood doors and a front door with metal fittings.

During the restoration it turned out that the color scheme of the interiors was very different: the window frames were painted blue, the doors had gray frames, the staircase was painted yellow, the cellar door was orange-red.

The rooms on the first floor were decorated with simple Bauhaus wallpaper, while the bedrooms, children’s rooms, and the girls’ room were plastered and painted in a single color.

The bathroom and kitchen walls were tiled in light yellow. The floors in the living rooms were red-brown linoleum. Sand-colored square Solnhofen slate tiles were laid in the entrance area, bathroom and kitchen.

Interior

The furniture and fittings designed by architects Franz Schuster and Ferdinand Kramer were simple, functional and adapted to the space.

Römerstadt was the first fully electrified housing development in Germany, and the building services in the Ernst-May-Haus were correspondingly innovative. In particular, the coal-fired central heating in the basement, a three-phase connection for lighting, stove and hot water for the bathroom and kitchen, and a radio connection were considered progressive.

Frankfurt Kitchen

Only six and a half square meters were the minimum dimensions of the corridor-like standard kitchen designed by Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky in 1926.

The Frankfurt Kitchen was created as part of the New Frankfurt building program. Between 1926 and 1930, tens of thousands of these built-in kitchens were mass-produced.

The kitchen was developed from the principles and structure of a Mitropa dining car kitchen into a pure working kitchen. Schütte-Lihotzky analyzed the work processes in the kitchen with the help of a stopwatch and by recording the hand movements and work steps of a housewife.

Standardization and uniformity were the basis for the production of this revolutionary type of kitchen. As well as shortening work distances, the mass production of individual elements such as cupboards, sliding glass doors and metal handles was intended to minimize costs.

Kitchen Equipment

The wooden base units were placed on concrete plinths to prevent dirt from accumulating underneath and to make the floor easy to clean.

To make the most of the space available, the cabinets were built to the ceiling. An ironing board could be folded down from the wall for work, and cooking pots with lids were placed in a ventilated cupboard for drying.

The aesthetics of the Frankfurt kitchen were in keeping with the international New Building movement. Labeled aluminum drawers, sliding glass doors in the wall unit, a metal sink, and metal handles on the cabinets contrasted with the brightly colored wood elements.

Modernizing households also meant electrifying them. As the first fully electrified settlement in Germany, the Roman city had the first electric stoves in addition to hot water from the boiler. Smaller electrical appliances such as kettles could be connected.

The refrigerator still consisted of a cupboard ventilated from the outside.

Garden Design

The garden, laid out in 1928 according to the plans of garden architect Leberecht Migge, was reconstructed in 2007-2008.

It combines a variety of uses in a very small space. The terrace served as an extension of the living space. It was shaded by vines pulled up on wires, thus providing a double benefit:

In the spring, they sprout and shade the terrace and living space, keeping the interior temperature at a comfortable level despite the large window area. In the fall, the vines shed their leaves, allowing more light into the house and warming it.

Garden Elements

Adjacent to the terrace is a perennial bed with cut flowers, seasonal plants and an ornamental shrub. This bed was used for visual embellishment and for making bouquets to decorate the interior.

The lawn behind it was used for relaxation and for hanging and bleaching laundry.

Next to this is the kitchen garden with four vegetable patches, a fruit tree and a strawberry patch. This part of the garden is of particular importance in Leberecht Migges’ concept, as it ensures the self-sufficiency of the residents.

On the long side of the property there is another bed, separated from the rest of the garden by a gravel path, with berry bushes (currants and gooseberries) and a perennial underplanting.

On the long side of the property there is another bed separated from the rest of the garden by a gravel path and planted with berry bushes (currants and gooseberries) with perennial underplanting.

Concrete wall and privet hedge

The garden is bordered by a concrete wall and a privet hedge, which Migge wanted to be only 0.80 m high. The idea behind it: The view should be able to wander off into the distance, giving a sense of size and expanse. The low height also allows for unobstructed communication with the neighbors.