Press release: 21.11.2018

Campus mile – ideas for redeveloping the Frankfurter Alleenring
Panel discussion

German National Library in Frankfurt am Main, Monday, 26 November 2018, 19:30

The German National Library is organising a panel discussion with the aim of advancing ideas for the redesign of Frankfurt’s Alleenring ring road as a “campus mile”. Initiators and representatives of the city and the neighbouring institutions will all have their say at this event.

The Goethe University’s Westend campus, the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and the German National Library are all situated along the northern part of the Alleenring ring road. In future, this area is to be developed into a campus mile and will therefore become the most important academic axis in Frankfurt and the surrounding region.

Peter Cachola Schmal, Director of the German Architecture Museum, will have the panel members state their opinion as to whether and how the Alleenring can be developed as a campus mile in terms of substance and location. The results of the student ideas competition will be presented by jury chairman Prof. Dr. Michael Koch.

Panel members

Prof. Dr. Frank Dievernich, President of Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Dr. Marcus Gwechenberger, Department of Planning and Housing, City of Frankfurt am Main
Prof. Dr. Michael Koch, HafenCity University Hamburg
Ute Schwens, Director of the German National Library
Prof. Nils Stieglitz, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Bettina Wiesmann MdB, Bundestag member for Frankfurt
and Prof. Birgitta Wolff, President of the Goethe University Frankfurt

Moderator: Peter Cachola Schmal, German Architecture Museum

“We want everyone involved to remain in dialogue so that the development of the campus mile can be driven forward,” says Ute Schwens, Director of the German National Library in Frankfurt. “The relocation of the Frankfurt School and Goethe University and the expansion of Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences has caused a dense population of academic institutions to settle around the German National Library, a development that could not have been foreseen when we moved into our new building 20 years ago. We are delighted by this; after all, as a reference library, we depend on researchers seeking out our reading rooms and using them as workplaces. We also welcome the plans to link the universities and libraries on the northern part of the Alleenring with a view to further urban development.”

The event at the German National Library is being organised in cooperation with Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and the City of Frankfurt am Main.

Campus mile – ideas for redeveloping the Frankfurter Alleenring
Panel discussion

Monday, 26 November, 19:30
German National Library in Frankfurt am Main,
Free admission.

Background

The German National Library is located on the northern section of Frankfurt's Alleenring, which is to form the backbone of the campus mile. For over a century now the German National Library has been collecting, documenting, archiving and making publicly available all written publications and sound recordings issued in Germany, or in German, since 1913. It provides its comprehensive range of services at its twin sites in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, but also in digital form to a global circle of users. In addition the German National Library also houses valuable and extensive special collections in the German Exile Archive 1933-1945 and the German Museum of Books and Writing.

Contact person
Barbara Fischer