Frankfurt's new cultural campus is taking shape. Rising between the city's Bockenheim and Westend districts, the Senckenberg Quarter is now home to the first completed buildings. In 2016, Cyrus Moser Architects won an international competition to masterplan this site, impressing the jury with their "distinctive architectural form combined with refined elegance and outstanding urban design." Today, four complementary structures define the ensemble: a hybrid high-rise, an office tower, a solitary office pavilion, and a childcare centre. As the architects explain: "We preserved the natural pedestrian paths connecting the surrounding neighbourhoods, anchoring them around a central plaza that defines the quarter's identity and serves as its beating heart. Every building opens onto this central hub through prominent entrances, creating vibrant public spaces where the community gathers and thrives."

Commanding the skyline at 145 metres is One Forty West, the site's architectural centrepiece. Built where the AfE Tower once stood—demolished in 2014—the hybrid structure rises beside the historic Senckenberg Museum. Its mixed-use programme combines a 4-star-plus hotel with fine dining, alongside exclusive residences offering breathtaking vistas. The residential component features 93 rental apartments (24th–31st floors) and 94 owned units (32nd–40th floors), each appointed with floor-to-ceiling panoramic glazing, glass-railed terraces, and private sky lounges. Hotel rooms occupy the upper reaches through the 23rd floor, framing stunning views of Frankfurt's skyline and the Taunus landscape beyond. The building also houses an exclusive Skybar on the 15th floor, complete with an expansive open-air terrace.

The building's exterior articulates this functional duality through design. Residential balconies wrap the upper storeys in a rhythmic stepped pattern, creating sight lines that penetrate multiple floors—a visual signature that embodies the "vertical city" concept. The lower storeys, by contrast, are enveloped in refined aluminium cladding. The base podium employs a steel post-and-beam structure paired with rear-ventilated fibre-reinforced concrete panels, metal surfaces, and perforated window openings—a sophisticated material palette developed in collaboration with Dietz Joppien Architects.

www.cyrusmoser.de
www.dietz-joppien.de

Photography Credits:

Thomas Gessner
www.thomasgessner.net
Thomas Mayer
www.thomas-mayer-photo.de
Faruk Pinjo
www.farukpinjo.com
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