The Jewish Academy

The Jewish Academy is located on the site of the former cultural campus at Senckenberganlage 11 in Frankfurt am Main. The academy consists of an existing building and a new building, which are connected by a single-story, glazed structure. This takes up the foyer and forms the address of the new academy. The existing building, a villa built around 1910 in the neoclassical style, was destroyed at the end of the Second World War and rebuilt shortly afterwards. In the future, the ground floor will house a kosher café with furniture from the Thonet brothers, a representative meeting room and a terrace. The upper floor contains office space for administration and a small library. The facade of the old building has been carefully renovated in keeping with the preservation of historical monuments, while the interior has been modernized and adapted to the new spatial needs. The old building carries the echo of neoclassicism in its expression. The new building accommodates very different uses on a total of five levels.

The ground floor contains a multifunctional reception room that is suitable for a wide variety of activities such as receptions, exhibitions or seminars. The room’s appearance can be changed – its walls can be colored to suit the occasion. Due to its location on the ground floor and its glass facade, the reception room can be seen from the outside and is therefore the most public place in the entire new building. The double-shell glass façade accommodates an atrium that runs along the entire long side. In the basement there is a large dining room with built-in seating, which is supplied with daylight via an oval water courtyard and the atrium on the ground floor. Floral wall wallpaper, numerous wall mirrors, wooden furniture and upholstered benches and chairs give the hall the feel of a Viennese café house. The most prominent place in the building is a large, monochrome blue hall of around 240 square meters on the first floor, the so-called Academy Hall. At more than five meters high, this is the highest room in the academy.

The glass facade construction inside is mirrored and therefore appears light and dematerialized. It also reflects the green of the neighboring trees. The ceiling, which is reminiscent of a stretched cloth, has oval light sources on its edges, which, in conjunction with the curtains, create different moods in the hall. The atmosphere ranges from the daylight room for conferences to an introverted film screening room to the elegant living room for festive events. There is a spacious foyer in front of the academy hall. A subsequent mezzanine floor houses side rooms for interpreters and management; the floor above houses four seminar rooms, whose floor-to-ceiling glazing coupled with the bright wall and ceiling surfaces make the rooms attractive daylight rooms. On the top floor, a lounge with a loggia positioned at the top of the building invites you to linger. Equipped with comfortable sofas and armchairs and decorative floor lamps, it acts as a place of retreat. The roof is partly green and partly designed as a terrace. From here you can enjoy an unmistakable view of the Frankfurt skyline. The facade of the new building is clad floor-to-ceiling in the base area with beige-colored prefabricated concrete parts. The other areas are plastered in the beige color of the old building, thereby strengthening the ensemble effect of the new building. The striking building profile highlights the special nature of the public institution: The new academy is the first supra-regional Jewish institution of its kind to be built after the Shoah.