Schauspielhaus

The Schauspielhaus in Frankfurt am Main was built between 1899 and 1902 by Berlin architect Heinrich Seeling near the Gallustor. Its design mixed Neorenaissance grandeur with subtle Art Nouveau touches, aiming to look both grand and modern. The theatre stood in the south-west corner of the old city walls, where building was normally forbidden. It formed part of a larger ensemble that included a restaurant garden, colonnades and three residential blocks on Neue Mainzer Strasse. One of Frankfurt’s finest classical buildings, the Palais Grunelius, was sacrificed to make room for the commercial wing. In its first decades the house became a leading stage for expressionist theatre in Germany. Directors like Richard Weichert and Alwin Kronacher shaped its reputation as a ‘talent foundry’ for writers and actors. Important premières took place here, including Thomas Mann’s Fiorenza in 1907, Bertolt Brecht’s wedding in 1926 and Fritz von Unruh’s comedy Zero in 1932. The stage designer Ludwig Sievert created memorable sets during the Weimar years. During the Second World War the building was gutted by fire in January 1944, though its outer walls survived. After the war the city decided to convert the shell into the main opera house. In the 1960s the surviving façades were clad in a new shell and the interior rebuilt as an opera auditorium. A shared glass foyer now links the opera house with the new Schauspiel Frankfurt built next door. Both theatres share a 120-metre glass frontage facing the street. Plans exist to replace the ageing double complex with a single modern building, but some groups campaign for the original Schauspielhaus to be restored instead.