SBiK-F

The institute building

The Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre is housed in a renovated building by Ferdinand Kramer, an architect from Frankfurt (1898 – 1985). The reinforced concrete skeleton structure with the yellow-brown clinker brickwork has been a listed building since 2000. The building itself has been described as a “real masterpiece of German post-war architecture” (quote from C. Lichtenstein, 1991: Ferdinand Kramer. The charm of the systematic). Like his other university buildings, Ferdinand Kramer who was the head of construction of Frankfurt’s Johann Wolfgang Goethe University from 1952 to 1964, based the building’s design on the principle of functionality. To do this Kramer designed the building suited to the needs of the users at that time. His design also kept in mind future users as he proclaimed “Science is in full development mode so new demands and new technical possibilities will constantly emerge. This also has to be included in our designs” (Ferdinand Kramer in a speech to natural scientists in 1957). We think, with our building he succeeded in fulfilling this vision.