by Koloman Hajdu
Offenbach am Main is an exciting and multi-faceted city whose long history is evident in today’s cityscape. After the first mention in 977, the settlement grew rapidly until it was finally chosen as the residence of the Isenburg family in the 16th century. Their Renaissance palace is now used by the University of Art and Design. During the industrialisation, Offenbach developed into an important industrial location in the region with a focus on leather goods production. As a result, Offenbach’s population grew enormously and new residential neighborhoods sprang up beyond the city limits. Today, these Wilhelminian style extensions as a whole are protected for historical reasons.[1] Around 40% of the city center was destroyed in the Second World War.[2]After the war, it was decided not to rebuild the inner city historically, but to design it according to modern principles.[3] Public buildings such as the town hall, churches and schools as well as apartment blocks were built in a brutalist style. Even though brutalism is an integral part of today’s urban landscape, only a few buildings are listed as historical monuments.
After industry suffered a massive decline in the 1980s, the city reorganised itself and attempted to assert itself as a service city. In the 1990s and 2000s, a number of high-rise buildings were built, mainly for office use. However most of these spaces are empty today. Nowadays, the city is endeavoring to present itself as a young, creative and up-and-coming city, even though it is struggling with a number of problems. The city has suffered from high unemployment for decades and is one of the poorest in Germany.[4] In addition, Offenbach has the highest rate of depression in the country.[5] For years, the city has been fighting the image of being one of the ugliest cities in Germany. The media usually focus on the high proportion of citizens with a history of migration or the gray city full of failed architecture. To counteract this, not only have several image campaigns been launched over the years, the city is also trying to increase its attractiveness through investments and construction projects.
Since the 2010s, a new residential district has been built on the former harbor site in Offenbach, and new residential quarters have been built on the abandoned factory premises. Although the city’s residents are in urgent need of affordable housing, it is mainly owner-occupied flats that have been built. The proportion of social housing in Offenbach has fallen from 9% to 6% over the past 25 years.[6] Even if the city tries to organise citizen participation in smaller projects such as the design of public squares, urban planning is essentially driven by investor groups, as debt-ridden Offenbach is dependent on tax revenues. A good example of this investor-friendly policy is the redesign of the market square, which was finalised in 2024.
About this Blog
This is the 21st blog post of the series of 24 blogs prepared by graduate students and early career professionals who shared their views on the future of heritage and landscape planning.
The writers of these blogposts participated in the Heriland Blended Intensive Programme “Heritage and the Planning of Landscapes” in October 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The market square is and has always been the gateway to the city. Its design was based on the principles of post-war modernism and the car-friendly city. In order to separate car traffic from pedestrians, a large second level was built to accommodate catering and retail outlets, but the pioneering ideas of the time were soon considered a failure. This project was also driven forward by an investor who had to file for bankruptcy during the construction period, meaning that the project was never completed. In 2004, the majority of the second level was demolished, leaving only a fragment at the central City-Center, which continued to provide access to the shops. Until the end, the City Centre also housed studios and workshops for Offenbach’s creative scene. Even though the building with its fragment was considered ugly by many, it was nevertheless an important identity-forming landmark with its striking plateau. The conversion of the City Centre was accompanied by the final demolition of the second level. The former City-Center is now a hotel. The architecture of the hotel and the redesign of the market square met with disapproval from the majority of Offenbach residents, and the loss of the fragment of the second level was lamented.[7]
In my opinion, Offenbach has missed a great opportunity here to develop the city sustainably, because the question arises as to what added value another hotel in this important location will have for the urban community. Not only are the disadvantaged citizens being pushed out of the city by gentrification, but the spaces that were used by artists and contributed to the city’s more positive image are also being lost by allowing investors to build without requirements. To date, monument protection has hardly been included in Offenbach’s urban planning, although the federal government has long been in favor of integrated urban development.[8] In an article for the Neue Schriften des Deutschen Städtetages in 2003, Raimund Bartella, the cultural affairs officer of the German Association of Cities, called on heritage conservation organisations to get involved in planning and to disclose all heritage conservation requirements and plans at an early stage if local authorities tend to draw up fewer development plans and instead increasingly have projects and development plans drawn up by investors and property developers.[9]
I am convinced that an approach based on architectural heritage would be the right way forward for Offenbach’s urban development, not only because the loss of historical substance means the loss of part of the city’s identity. The approach proposed by the Dutch Professor of Practice for broad prosperity Joks Janssen and colleagues in the European planning studies journal to consider heritage as a vector could be suitable here, as “sustainable urban development is possible if heritage determines the direction of spatial projects and developments”.[10] German heritage conservation works a lot with maps in order to depict structures and values. Nevertheless, in 2015, the German art and cultural historian Roland Günter called for heritage conservation to be able to “describe the living characteristics of individual neighborhoods” in order to gain and spread understanding among the population.[11] This is where the HLC method could provide significant added value. In the case of the redesign of the market square, no maps of the surrounding area were produced that would show, for example, the design criteria of the existing buildings. I fear that the city administration is setting other priorities and practicing urban planning that is not orientated towards people’s needs. That is why it would be so important for local authorities to be introduced to the HERILAND concept so that much of what is called sustainability, in all its facets, is truly sustainable.
End Notes
[1] Sonja Bonin (2007) Kulturdenkmäler in Hessen. Stadt Offenbach. Stuttgart 2007, p.65.
[2] Wolfgang Reuter (2015) Eine Stadt baut auf. Offenbach in den 50er Jahren. Offenbach am Main, p.49.
[3] SIMONE KAUCHER-QUADE (2007) Offenbach. Eine Stadt im Umbruch – 50 Jahre Stadtentwicklung. Offenbach am Main.p.10.
[4]https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1134691/umfrage/staedte-und-landkreise-mit-der-hoechsten-arbeitslosenquote/
[5]https://www.hessenschau.de/gesellschaft/aok-gesundheitsatlas-offenbach-hat-bundesweit-die-hoechste-depressionsrate-v1,depressionen-hessen-studie-aok-100.html
[6]https://www.offenbach.de/stadtwerke/microsite/gbo/aktuelles/gbo-zehn-jahres-programm-23.11.2020.php
[7] A blog as well as the Instagram-channel kritische_geographie_offenbach commented on the redesign. The Instagram post received many likes and some favourable comments. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6GaBm7ovjT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
[8] Leipzig Charter 2007: Towards a sustainable European city
[9]Raimund Bartella Wegwerfgesellschaft und Denkmalpflege – Perspektiven der kommunalen Denkmalpflege in HELMUT LANGE (2003) Denkmalpflege in den Städten. Stadtbaukunst, Stadtökologie, Stadtentwicklung, Berlin. p.32.
[10] Joks Janssen, Eric Luiten, Hans Renes & Eva Stegmeijer (2017) Heritage
as sector, factor and vector: conceptualizing the shifting relationship between heritage management and spatial planning, European Planning Studies. p.1656.
[11] Roland Günter (2015) Vom Elend der Denkmalpflege und der Stadtplanung. Kommunale Studien zur Philosophie des Bewahrens und des Zerstörens, Essen. p.213.
Bibliography
Joks Janssen, Eric Luiten, Hans Renes & Eva Stegmeijer (2017) Heritage
as sector, factor and vector: conceptualizing the shifting relationship between heritage management and spatial planning, European Planning Studies.
Raimund Bartella Wegwerfgesellschaft und Denkmalpflege – Perspektiven der kommunalen Denkmalpflege in Helmut Lange (2003) Denkmalpflege in den Städten. Stadtbaukunst, Stadtökologie, Stadtentwicklung, Berlin.
Roland Günter (2015) Vom Elend der Denkmalpflege und der Stadtplanung. Kommunale Studien zur Philosophie des Bewahrens und des Zerstörens, Essen.
SIMONE KAUCHER-QUADE (2007) Offenbach. Eine Stadt im Umbruch – 50 Jahre Stadtentwicklung. Offenbach am Main.
Wolfgang Reuter (2015) Eine Stadt baut auf. Offenbach in den 50er Jahren. Offenbach am Main.
Images
Figure 1. https://www.offenbach.de/stadtwerke/microsite/hafen/index.php
Figure 2. http://wase-bau.de/referenzen/
Figure 3. http://wase-bau.de/referenzen/
About the author
Koloman Hajdu studied musicology and art history before completing a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Heritage at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden. When he moved to Offenbach eight years ago, he experienced the building projects and changes in the city at first hand. For his bachelor’s thesis, the author focused on the redesign of the market square in Offenbach from a heritage conservation perspective. He has just started studying for a Master’s degree in Wiesbaden and sees his professional future in sustainable urban development. This blog post was inspired by his participation in the Heriland Blended Intensive Program on “Heritage and Landscapes Futures”, in Gothenburg, Sweden, in October 2024.