Construction and the Move – May 2010

New perspectives on the Toll Tower

In a project to be completed in 2011, the museum's older facilities are undergoing major renovation work to restore the qualities that make them valuable historical monuments. Presently the Toll Tower is being uncovered.

The Toll Tower, constructed by Eberhard Friedberger in the years 1454–56, is located on the west side of the building ensemble on the Main. The Bernus Building was built in 1715–17 directly onto the Toll Tower and on the partially demolished Mediaeval city wall. To afford a view of the Toll Tower in the museum's interior in the future, a section of the ceiling in the kinder museum exhibition room will be cut out and surrounded by a balustrade. From there, as from a balcony, it will be possible to look down onto the ground floor below, and at the Toll Tower at eye level. Two photos show this spatial situation in the process of construction.

In the western wing of the Bernus Building, a new staircase is being installed. This is the part of the building facing Fahrtor and protruding out over the nineteenth-century Customs Building. When construction is completed, this large-scale free-standing staircase will provide access to the kinder museum and the library.

In the Staufer Tower on the east side of the historical building ensemble, the columns serving to mark the tower's no-longer-existing walls are still being erected. It is already possible to gain a fairly complete impression of how the space will look when it is finished. The room on the ground floor from which the photo was taken will have the original Staufer height of more than five metres. Once the new exhibition "Collectors and Donors of Frankfurt" has been installed, the Waldschmidt and Dillich holdings will be presented in this two-storey space.