100 Years of New Frankfurt: Pop-up Presentation

In 2025, the city of Frankfurt will celebrate the 100th anniversary of a 1920s modernization campaign programmatically dubbed “New Frankfurt” by the Internationale Monatsschrift für die Probleme kultureller Neugestaltung (International Monthly for the Problems of Cultural Redesign).

This groundbreaking transformation of the city and of society was characterized by new, functionally specific buildings, including housing developments featuring the famous “Frankfurt Kitchen”; by investments in urban infrastructure; by modern media such as radio and photography; and by a social approach to art and design.

The key figures of New Frankfurt were Jewish and secular: Mayor Ludwig Landmann, City Planning Commissioner Ernst May, City Treasurer Bruno Asch, and Max Michel, who was Head of Cultural Affairs. Is there a connection between the Jewish tradition of cultivating community spirit and the social, urban, and cultural modernization project known as “New Frankfurt”? From now through the spring of 2026, the Jewish Museum Frankfurt explores this question in various pop-up presentations. The museum’s New Frankfurt trail begins at Bertha-Pappenheim-Platz and leads visitors from the forecourt through the public library, the temporary exhibition “In the Face of Death,” and the permanent exhibition in the Rothschild Palais.