Festival opens closed industrial facilities in Rhein-Main

• OfAndreas Hartmann

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A historic rope factory in Frankfurt is the starting point for this year’s “Days of Industrial Culture”. They have a top-class program to offer again this year

Places where time seems to have stood still are becoming increasingly rare in the big city, and yet they do exist. On the outskirts of Frankfurt’s Sachsenhausen district, above Offenbacher Landstrasse, there is an enchanted old industrial plant, surrounded by rampant gardens with old fruit trees, a huge, 15,000 square meter site, it could all be building land.

In view of the current real estate prices, one can almost speak of a miracle that no row houses are being built here. Because the historic buildings of the former Reutlinger rope factory with the old, still preserved machines that tensioned hemp and wire ropes here have been under monument protection since this year, and the family has big plans for the cautious reuse of the beautiful area.

A foundation will look after the future of the property, as Cajus Heubner, grandson of the company founder, proudly reports. Among other things, the ropes used to hoist the large Atlas group onto Frankfurt’s main train station or the famous Gloriosa bell in the tower of the Imperial Cathedral were woven here in the cable car.

After the abandonment of rope production at the Sachsenhausen site 30 years ago, part of the more than 200-meter-long cable car hall, which exploits the slope of the slope, was rented to artists, while the Frankfurt Theater was able to use other buildings as a rehearsal stage. “That was a wonderful environment with a lot of culture in which I grew up,” remembers the now 40-year-old Heubner. “When I was a child, there was an intense smell of the tamped clay floor and the hemp ropes.” The ropes made here were sold in a separate shop in the city center next to today’s Museum of Modern Art.

Heubner’s uncle’s company now produces worldwide patented metal suspensions for lights. Their move now clears the way for a new use. Among other things, a cooperatively organized organic bakery and other studios are to be built on the spacious area, there should be space for art and music, perhaps also for gastronomy, and the beautiful, dreamy garden could one day be connected to the neighboring park of the St. Georgen Jesuit University .

In any case, however, the site should be made accessible to the public, and the “Days of Industrial Culture” beginning on August 21st, whose motto “Networking” this year fits perfectly with a historical rope factory, can help to make this new cultural location better known.

From August 21 to September 4, the light and sound installation “Time Machines” will run here daily from 5 to 9 pm. The new organic bakery is also due to start working here in August, so maybe there will be fresh bread at the Seilerbahn.

Sabine von Bebenburg, managing director of the cultural region, points out that an old industrial plant like this one offers unprecedented potential. There are countless examples of this in the Rhine-Main area (and unfortunately also many of very unsightly demolitions of historical ensembles).

Overall, however, the region hides a lot of evidence of work, trade and change, some built by famous architects, some surprisingly used and repurposed. A lot can be discovered on the route of industrial culture and on the days of the same name, a lot is added every year, and modern industrial plants can also be worth seeing. “It’s really impressive how business and culture, tourism and urban development work together here,” says von Bebenburg. “It’s not just for technology freaks for a long time.”

How a region is networked can be shown with many examples, from electricity and water to cycle superhighways. The Days of Industrial Culture open this time, among other things, lock and port facilities, show bridges and factories between Idstein, Aschaffenburg and Darmstadt. It is remarkable that the program, the planning of which fell in the middle of the phase of particularly high corona incidences, is so diverse. This would hardly have been possible without the networks that the cultural region has established in recent years.

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