School, Frankfurt, Germany

Architectural Review, The, April, 1995 by Blundell Peter Jones

Architect Behnisch & Partners

The recently completed school in Frankfurt is an extension, although the new buildings occupy somewhat more area than the old. The site is Romerstadt, one of the famous Modernist Siedlungen planned by city architect Ernst May in the late 1920s, with blocks of flats and rows of terraced houses laid out on the Zeilenbau principle (AR June 1978). The site lies to the north of the city, separated from the inner suburbs by the Nidda valley, which is still preserved as a park. The curving layout of the housing followed the contours of the edge of the flood plain, and May's assistant Martin EIsasser designed a secondary school, now a listed monument of the 'white architecture', right at the centre of the development. With a generous open space to its east, the school was at first a focal point of the Siedlung, but Frankfurt's expanding road system took over, and a high-level motorway and tram route were forced through, cutting Romerstadt in half. Renamed the Geschwister Scholl school after the war,(3) EIsasser's school continued to operate in increasingly cramped conditions and the old fabric deteriorated. Eventually a competition was held in the late 1980s for its restoration and extension, which was won by Behnisch & Partners.

Behnisch and his team decided against trying to continue the style of the old building, a somewhat austere and rational piece of early Modernism reflecting a severe and outdated educational style. Instead they produced a light and airy design like their earlier schools, but also in strong response to the site, enjoying the valley but also coping with the intrusive motorway. They placed the gymnasium on the corner between the old school and the west part of the Siedlung, then added their new school building in line with the old, projecting southward. On its east side it faces the motorway with a protective wall visible as a sequence of brightly painted planes, from which a great convex element projects at high level clad in horizontal corrugated metal. The gesture is large enough to be felt on the motorway, suggesting a ship-like image to passing traffic. Close to, the drama of its layering conveys protection in a more direct way, and views of the east side are not lost, for the glazed main stair projects through it. This is a good orientation device, taking pupils and staff from one side of the building to the other.

On its softer west side the school is more like earlier Behnisch ones, with glazed facades, balconies and sunscreens. Having screened off the motorway, it can open into a series of gardens, its upper classrooms overlooking the beautiful Nidda valley. The linear progression of the two north-south wings, which might otherwise be excessive, is broken by stepping the south one westward by the width of the corridor, neatly accommodating the lift in the gap. The most crucial planning move, though, is the addition of a third wing skewed at about 60 degrees and running towards the corner of the gymnasium. To its south this produces an embracing garden space, concave in contrast with the convex east face of the school, and it also allows its classrooms an excellent view to the south-west. On its north side, the skewed wing produces a tapered space between school and gymnasium which forms a natural entrance. The ground floor of the north wing is left open, stoa-like, to shelter visitors arriving from the north and guide them through to the porter and main entrance, while the cafeteria stands at the junction of north wing and entrance-hall, promising hospitality. Between converging wings, glass doors in a north-facing glass wall lead through to a great triangular toplit hall with galleries at upper levels, which is the social focus of the school. It is similar to the halls both in the second Lorch school and the school at Bad Rappenau (AR February 1992).

An alternative interpretation of the plan takes the south and skewed west wings as a single kinked unit, but the north wing as a separate body. This reading is supported by the distribution of the accommodation, for while the north wing houses staff, administration and services, with the head's office at the end of the first floor, the other two wings contain nearly all the classrooms. Normal ones take the two upper levels, and specialised science classrooms the ground. At the south end of the ground floor is a special group of rooms not repeated above and taking advantage of that location: they are used for biology, opening onto an ecological garden and pond. High level rooms on the relatively closed east side within the great projecting curve are given to audiovisual and computer rooms, spaces of restricted light which can therefore appropriately be set behind the motorway wall.

The gymnasium is a rectagular hall tied to a tapered service annexe containing changing rooms, technical plant and storage. The taper allows expansion towards the entrance end, and the foyer at its east end provides a direct link with the old building. As with earlier Behnisch school gymnasia and sports halls (AR February 1991), the span across the main hall is taken by upstanding trusses within the upward projecting rooflights, which allows a flat and unobstructed ceiling within. A full glass wall to south admits generous sidelight, but is protected from excessive sun by a leaning section, overhanging eaves, and automatic motorised canvas sunblinds. Three strips of rooflight run north-south across the hall, not parallel sided but tapered towards the front, so that the toplight admitted increases with distance from the glazed wall.