Line Form Function

Architect Ferdinand Kramer (1898–1985) has gone down in history as an outstanding designer of furniture, everyday articles, and functionalist Modernism buildings. With Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt having last year presented Kramer’s design work, the DAM is now devoting an exhibition to his architecture. In the 1920s he worked with Ernst May on the “New Frankfurt” project, before later emigrating to the United States. After the Second World War, Kramer was one of the few who dared to return from exile to a Germany that was damaged not only materially, but spiritually as well. Appointed by Max Horkheimer, in 1952 he assumed the position of Director of University Building in his home city of Frankfurt\Main. With the university having moved from the Bockenheim district to the Westend, only a few of these edifices, which can be regarded as symbolic structures of a democratic new beginning, will remain.