A state of mind translated into architecture: Grips of FSB at the German Romanticism Museum, Frankfurt am Main

The renowned agency MÄCKLERARCHITEKTEN provided the design for the recently opened new building of the German Romantic Museum (Deutsches Romantikmuseum) - the world's first museum dedicated to the era of German-speaking Romanticism as a whole. The museum displays unique original pieces in innovative exhibition formats that make the era of Romanticism as a key era tangible. In the new museum building, which covers approximately 1,600 square meters of exhibition space on three floors, the architects are committed to high-quality expansion down to the smallest detail. Door and window fittings by FSB were used in all parts of the building in various designs and, in addition to the FSB 1106 model designed by Chris-toph Mäckler himself, also as part of special "FSB Handmade" versions.

Christoph Mäckler sees the city, its streets and squares as public spaces shaped by the facades of the buildings. "The outer walls of the houses are the inner walls of the street and square spaces," says the renowned architect and planner who also argues that architecture at its best builds on the given circumstances of the grown city and carries them forward in a meaningful way. His design for the Romantic Museum does this with a facade design that forms a unity with the neighboring Goethe House. The new MÄCKLERARCHITEKTEN building opens up to the city on three fronts that are differentiated in height, proportion, color tone and material structure, thus providing space for the building's various uses: museum, temporary exhibition and cultural transfer. "With the differentiated entrances, the special design of the window, the blue bay window and the small skylight, the inside enters into erasure with the outside and thus expresses the spirit of Romanticism in the streetscape," Christoph Mäckler adds.

Wide gestures, soft shapes and beautiful details

In order to equip the street facades of a museum, whose sensitive exhibits do not tolerate daylight, with windows at all, the architects oriented the enabling staircase along the facade. Here, the so-called sky staircase becomes a highlight of the interior space design: the stairwell, completely immersed in blue, rejuvenates itself in its course and thus misleads the visitor with its illusionary perspective - it seems to ascend into infinity. A bright blue er-ker refers to the blue flower as a central symbol of romance for passion, love and the pursuit of the infinite. A second staircase within the museum, slung around an elliptical stair eye, makes a grand gesture.

Christoph Mäckler has been working closely with FSB for two decades. The FSB 1106 model he designed, which has already been used in prestige projects such as the Portikus exhibition house, the Goethestraße 34 office and commercial building, the "Wohnen am West-hafen" project in Frankfurt or the Augustiner Museum in Freiburg, is now being used in the new building of the German Romantic Museum - partly in a special finish. With its gentle curves and traditional form language, the handle fits in perfectly with the museum's romantically inspired interior. The FSB 1106 mo-del was adapted as a window handle, door handle and profile handle. To match the imposing museum doors made of black steel, the surface of the door handle was given a matte black stainless steel PVD coating. The barrier-free FSB 4240 door handle set was also combined with Mäckler's own FSB 1106 design in matte black at the architects' request. As part of "FSB Handmade", door and window handles can be produced in addition to the existing product portfolio according to individual wishes. At the instigation of MÄCKLERARCHITEKTEN, for instance, the classically spherical FSB 0802 door handle has been given a noble serrated edge that lends the stainless-steel handle a special bite and an ornamental feel.