Pharmaceutical Institute, lecture hall and laboratory building, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main; Photo: Paul Förster, 1957

When Ferdinand Kramer had the much too narrow neobaroque entrance portal of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University replaced by a large, glazed entrance area, he caused a sensation in Frankfurt during the post-war era. However, with this programmatic intervention, the architect, who also spent the Nazi era in emigration, wanted to set a symbol for a democratic new beginning and the societal opening of the university.

Lecture Hall, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main; Photo: H. Schwöbel, 1958

Kramer returned to Germany from America in 1952 to manage the new construction as the Building Director at the university. He designed 23 university buildings with his team; however, he also designed all of the interior fixtures and furniture, even the inscription of the new buildings. He thus tied his work in with the 1920s, during which, under Ernst May, he had developed ground-breaking furniture designs and everyday objects for the housing projects of the “New Frankfurt”. At that time, his adaptable pieces of furniture, steel frames and plywood doors, door and window handles, windowsills, seat bathtubs and lights made good and durable design affordable even for those on a low income. Today, due to his socially oriented works, Ferdinand Kramer is without a doubt regarded as one of the most significant architects and designers from the early period of modernism and post-war modernism.

Canteen, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main; Photo: H. Schwöbel, 1963

Side table FK12 Fortyforty, 1945

Sofa FK09 Westhausen, 1926 und Armchair FK10 Weissenhof, 1926

Daybed FK12 Senckenberg, 1952

Ferdinand Kramer was born in 1898 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In 1916 he began to study architecture in Munich. In 1919 he attended the Bauhaus in Weimar; however, he returned to Munich after a few months due to being disappointed with the lack of regular architecture training. Walter Gropius expressed his dismay at Kramer’s decision in a handwritten letter consisting of several pages. After completing his studies at the TH (Technical University) of Munich in 1922, Kramer designed small furniture pieces and other everyday items such as the famous “Kramer Oven”. He gave lectures and participated in the exhibition “DIE FORM” (1924). From 1925 on, he worked under Ernst May at the Städtische Hochbauamt (Urban Local Planning Authority) of Frankfurt where he designed many pieces of furniture and everyday items for the housing projects of the “New Frankfurt” and where he was also involved in planning the balcony-access houses of the “Westhausen” project. Alongside this, he also designed furniture for Thonet. From 1930 he worked as a freelance architect. Due to the modernity of his designs and the Jewish heritage of his wife Beate Kramer, born Feith, he was barred from the “Reichskammer der bildenden Künste” (Third Reich’s Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts) and banned from carrying out his profession. In 1938 Kramer followed his wife to the USA, where he worked in various architecture and design offices, before he was licensed as an architect in 1940. Yet, Kramer worked mainly as a designer in New York: He developed progressive goods presentation systems for shopping centres, a transportable electric mini kitchen, his successful DIY “knock down” furniture, as well as his famous disposable umbrella “Rainbelle”.

Philipp Mainzer on the Ferdinand Kramer® collection

Appointed as the Building Director of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Kramer returned to Frankfurt in 1952, where he planned the university buildings to the smallest detail of the interior and thus lastingly shaped the appearance of the Frankfurt University. In 1961 Kramer married his second wife, Lore Kramer, born Koehn, with whom he had three children. From 1964 onwards, he continued his work in his own office and planned projects such as Frankfurt’s City and University Library. Close friends were personalities, such as the social philosopher Theodor Adorno or the artist Charlotte Posenenske. During his lifetime, Kramer was awarded countless prizes, distinctions and tributes for his work. A solo exhibition at the Berlin Bauhaus Archive in 1982/83 was the first showcase of his work. In 1985 Kramer died in Frankfurt am Main, his place of birth. Besides further shows, in the 1990s the comprehensive Kramer retrospective “The Charm of the Systematic” was exhibited in Zurich, Frankfurt, Dessau and Munich. Although Ferdinand Kramer is acclaimed as one of the most import ant architects of modernism today, the future of his listed Frankfurt University buildings is uncertain, as the campus will be dissolved. In 2012, e15 with the Ferdinand Kramer® collection launches re-editions of his ground-breaking furniture designs for the first time, which were re-issued in close cooperation with Kramer’s second wife. She knows Kramer’s designs like no other.