I bookmarked a few placed to visit today. It turned out to be a very packed day, which I’ll split into a few posts.
There was a bus close to my hotel that went directly to my first stop: the IG Farben Building.
IG Farben used to be the world’s largest chemical company and the world’s fourth largest company overall. In 1928, it commissioned the largest office building ever constructed, known as the IG Farben Building. The company occupied the building for 15 years.
After World War II, the Supreme Headquarters (which included General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s office) were located there. It was later refurbished and is now part of the Goethe University Frankfurt.
The building, although not in the Bauhaus style, originates from the same modernist era. A competition to find an architect was won by Hans Poelzig.
The architect used a few techniques to disguise the building’s huge scale, such as curving the facade and varying each floor’s height and proportions.
The design was innovative because it maximised natural light, allowed ventilation before modern air conditioning, and gave thousands of office workers access to windows.
These make the building feel less overwhelming than a purely functional office block of similar size.
An unusual feature of the building that I wanted to see were the paternoster lifts. These are lifts that are continuously moving. You step into them (one person only) whilst its moving! I wasn’t sure if I could go to see the lifts. I asked a student and she said the lifts were accessible only from the library, which was situated at both ends of the building.
As instructed, I walked to the third floor and went to one end of the building. And there it was! The wooden lifts were moving in opposite directions. Some students took them — one at a time. When they were gone, I stepped into the descending lift. I found I couldn’t get out of the building and went back to the third floor via the ascending lift. This may be why the student said the lifts are accessible only from the third floor!
It’s quite odd to get on a moving lift. It’s a different sensation depending on whether the lift is going up or down. Stepping onto a lift is a bit like taking a downward or upward step with a bit of adjustment since the lift is moving (slowly). Getting off feels odd – like jumping off an old London Routemaster bus.