LivingCountry

This was once a trading centre for oriental carpets. Today Frankfurt's Westhafen consists of attractive residential and office buildings. The dominant Westhafen Tower building with its lozenge pattern has all the flair of Frankfurt's high-rise skyline. Needless to say, this stylish location on the river bank includes a marina. Frankfurt am Main (pia) The crane-like structure stands right beside the water. It is six in the morning, and not yet really bright, as the snout dips silently into the ship's belly burrowing through 1,900 tonnes of Columbian coal - until the unload-ing screw begins to slowly turn. Soon the lumps of black are on their way up-wards. The coal falls onto a conveyor belt, thus beginning its journey through the new office complex at Frankfurt's Westhafen into one of the three large silos for the heating plant, leaving not even a hint of a black trail behind, clean and modern, in an aluminium-coloured shaft. Today, the crane is the only thing that recalls the bustling activity in the city of Frankfurt's former trading harbour.

On 16 October 1886, after only three years of construction work, the City of Frankfurt celebrated the opening of the Westhafen. From then on, the courses of freighters from all over the world crossed here in the 48,000 square-metre harbour basin. Right from the very start, the harbour also served as a storing area for municipal provisions which were stacked in warehouses and silos. After the Second World War, huge halls dominated the harbour area, and Frankfurt became the second largest trading centre for oriental carpets, in competition with the Hansa city of Hamburg. Traders stored their wares on an area covering 10,000 square metres.

Today, the northern bank of the river Main is lined not with heavy cranes and austere warehouses but with glass buildings and colour facades. Smartly dressed office employees enjoy their lunch-break here, and instead of the legendary steamer "Maakuh", once drawn upstream with the help of a chain anchored on the river bed, small dinghies and sleek yachts owned by the new Westhafen residents are anchored in the waters of the Main. The private boats are still the only ones along the harbour mole, that promontory which now, thanks to 30-metre-long concrete piles, carries owner-occupied apartments around which the waves lap, and costing 3,500 euros per square metre and upwards. Opposite is the municipal marina, which since early this year has belonged to the Segel Center Frankfurt, with moorage for another 13 boats. Leaseholder Eckhard Mikulski aims to "make boating on the Main acceptable again".

As a result of criticism for being "unhealthy", Frankfurt set about rediscovering the river banks for its inhabitants. In the early 20th century, the quayside and river banks were cleared of old storehouses, which were then replaced by swimming baths, rowing clubs and boat hire companies. Were it not for the enormous protests, this "idyll on the river" would almost have been destroyed in the 1960s by a high-capacity road scheduled to be constructed close to the river banks. In 1991 the then head of Frankfurt's planning department Martin Wentz, with the support of the mayor Volker Hauff, propagated the concept of "living on the river" and for that same purpose set up the advisory committee called Consilium Stadtraum Main. The contracts for developing the Westhafen area as a public-private-partnership were signed in 1994. It marked the end of an era: the remaining nine haulage companies and the 50 carpet traders had to give way. Some of them are now in the Osthafen, right next to the port authority.

Meantime the "dream of living and working on the river" has come true and its landmark is the Westhafen Tower, round, green, and with a lozenge pattern. The architect, Michael Schumacher, ascribes a "very special quality" to it: not only is the pattern reminiscent of the traditional Frankfurt apple-wine glass, the round structure also alludes to the city's past, when round watchtowers along the river Main guarded the former free Imperial city. Together with the so-called Bridge Building and Westhafen House, the 99-metre-high tower is an architectural and visual symbol of the new city quarter on the Main. Although initially the office block was not really acknowledged by potential tenants, since the rents were reduced it is now fully occupied. By contrast, the smart residential buildings on the banks of the river were all sold even before construction was completed.

Katharina Kütemeyer