Saalhof

Saalhof stands in Frankfurt as an architectural ensemble of five historic buildings beside the city’s history museum. Its buildings span eight centuries, bringing medieval walls, a Gothic tower, Baroque details and nineteenth-century façades into one setting.

The Staufer Royal Castle dates from around 1200 and remains Frankfurt’s oldest standing building. Restoration exposed its medieval foundation walls and powerful tower house, while the mid-fifteenth-century Rententurm preserves a late Gothic toll tower and its spiral staircase. The Bernuspalais adds early eighteenth-century Baroque character, and Rudolf Burnitz’s 1842 Burnitzbau presents a neo-Romanesque façade. The nearby Customs House belongs to the same period, and restoration between 2008 and 2012 renewed the historic character inside and out.

Exhibitions across 2,000 square metres explore Frankfurt through townscapes, citizens’ city and global city themes. A CityLab, changing displays created with Frankfurt’s citizens, courtyards and a public square connect the old buildings with a modern museum building completed in 2017. Its diamond façade gives the quarter a striking contemporary edge.