The Bundesbank and the City of Frankfurt am Main have agreed that the urban planning concept developed for the Bank's Central Office by the firm “Ferdinand Heide Architekten” is permissible under current planning and construction law. This means that the path is clear for the concept to be implemented through an architectural design competition.

A joint statement on the urban planning concept was signed by Bundesbank Executive Board member Johannes Beermann and Mike Josef, head of the planning department of the City of Frankfurt. “Based on the revised design concept, all further planning stages can now proceed without it being necessary to amend current construction and planning legislation – such as regarding building heights or the location of the buildings on the property,” Mr Josef said.

New campus: compact building ensemble and spacious open areas

In the next few years, the campus of the Bundesbank’s Central Office is scheduled to be fully refurbished and augmented by several new buildings. This means that all Bundesbank Central Office staff based in the Frankfurt area will work at one site; they are currently spread out among various buildings across the city. The existing main building, which was opened in 1972, and the other legacy buildings have reached the end of their useful life; the technology they house is likewise no longer state of the art.

In December 2018, the Bundesbank’s Executive Board decided to commission the Ferdinand Heide architecture firm with further developing the draft concept into an overall concept. What set this Frankfurt-based architecture firm’s proposal apart from the other drafts was, in particular, the combination of a compact building ensemble with very spacious open areas.

Prize-winning drafts on display at public exhibition

Following the design competition, the Bundesbank has now tendered the architectural design competition publicly throughout the EU. At the end of 2019, a committee composed of external experts and Bundesbank representatives will select, on the basis of reference projects, a maximum of 30 participants from among the entrants.

A committee of skilled and respected experts will select six prize winners from the submitted drafts; this will probably take place in mid-2020. The Executive Board will subsequently decide on whether to award the contract to one or multiple successful tenderers. The prize-winning drafts will be put on display in a public exhibition.