A Day Between Offenbach and Frankfurt with Curator and Writer Anna Scheuermann

Anna by Niko Goebel #schoeneeckenausoffenbach

Anna Scheuermann studied architecture in Darmstadt, Germany and Querétaro, Mexico and now works as a freelance curator, writer, editor, guide and moderator. She worked extensively with the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) and co–curated two German contributions at architecture biennials: Ready for Take–Off in São Paulo (2007) and Making Heimat in Venice (2016). Her publications include schneider+schumacher (2012), the Making Heimat-trilogy (2016/2017), the Architectural Guide Frankfurt Rhein–Main (2020) and Fast Forward – Dense City (2022). Anna’s day involves bike rides between Offenbach and Frankfurt, the “Making Frankfurt” initiative, editing a magazine, and a little bit of baking.

6:00am: Every weekday my alarm goes off at 6:00am so that I can prepare everything for the day ahead – in peace. My first stop is our Italian espresso machine, that was designed in 1977 (my year of birth), but we bought it exactly thirty years later. It needs around thirty minutes to warm up, but then it makes the best coffee, and we simply enjoy the handcraft of making it ourselves, grinding the coffee beans and giving the espresso the perfect crema.

Apart from that, the breakfast and lunch boxes for our two girls have to be packed. We try to ride our bikes to school and work every day, except when the weather is simply too bad or too dangerous. During the Covid-19 pandemic, in November 2020, I started my freelance studio at home, so that I often ride back and forth between Offenbach (where we live) and Frankfurt (where our second daughter goes to school and where most of my clients are). We live in the former harbor of Offenbach, from where we have a great view of the skyline of Frankfurt, for example the European Central Bank by Coop Himmelb(l)au.

7:45am: The trip to Frankfurt on our bikes takes twenty minutes, and is about 5.2 kilometers or 3.2 miles along a bike path along the Main river, without street lights and crossings, wide enough so that the bike racers, who like to use it as a training route, can overtake us anytime.

The two neighboring cities Frankfurt and Offenbach are very close together, but the two worlds couldn’t be further apart. Whereas Frankfurt is known for its financial district and wealthy inhabitants, Offenbach has always been the industrial counterpart and home to the lower-class laborers. Nonetheless in the last years the cities have grown closer together, both of them proud of their background and future plans, similar to Manhattan and Brooklyn. They both have a large and diverse creative and cultural scene, and we just love their international flavor. On top of that the central location in Germany makes it very easy to travel, for work and for pleasure. Sadly travelling has dropped further in the background in the past years, but we used to travel a lot to far away countries, and we really miss it a lot lately.

8:30am: As often as possible I try to link my first bike ride to Frankfurt with appointments or errands in the city. In the mornings it´s so lovely to overtake all the cars and busses via the newly painted red bike lanes. And there is a lot of space in the pedestrian areas in the city-center, where it is allowed to ride bikes, because the shops are not yet open. Sometimes I just stop at one of the many cafés along the way for an open-air-coffee or get a cinnamon roll for my second breakfast at home.

But today I have a meeting with our initiative “Making Frankfurt”. It was founded in the summer of 2020 by several local creatives, architects, artists, dancers and musicians, in order create visions for a more sustainable and livable future in the city. We joined forces with the city of Frankfurt and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) in the so called “Post-Corona-Innenstadt” (Post Covid City Center) project, to revive the city center of Frankfurt with new functions and co-creative networks.

Yesterday the city of Frankfurt decided to additionally fund our project with 30 million Euros. That will finance some of our future ideas, such as the “Agentur des städtischen Wandels” (Agency of Urban Change). So it is time to celebrate and toast to all of us for our hard volunteer work in the past months! We meet at the Pop-Up-Café at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, a newly opened location in an art museum space situated right between the city hall at the Römer (where the Roman emperors were crowned) and the “Neue Altstadt” (the reconstructed and newly built old city).

Yet, while celebrating with my team mates in Frankfurt I have to finish another job virtually: Together with Nadin Heinich and Cornelia Hellstern from Munich, I have been working as the managing editor on the second issue of the Fast Forward Magazine in the past months. It will go along with this year’s Architecture Matters Conference on the topic of “Dense City”, and its impact on future climate neutrality. It has to be printed and delivered by May 19th, the first conference day. At 9:00 am I can finalize the layout with Noëm Held, our graphic designer, and send it to the printer – our work is done! I just love creating analog books and magazines, just like exhibitions they feel like very dense and intense architecture projects to me.

10:30am: Riding my bike always enables me to take some time to switch from one job to another. Today I even sit down shortly in order to reflect on past jobs and future steps ahead of me.

12:00pm: When I reach my home office in Offenbach I answer my mails and talk on the phone, and suddenly it is already time for lunch. I really love cooking and baking, but during the day I try to make something quickly, like pasta.

2:00pm: Normally I pick up our daughter from school at 2:00pm, but today she stays at a friend’s house in Frankfurt, so I gain a little more time to work.

6:00pm: At the end of a work day the last bike rides are my exercise for the day. On weekends I sometimes go jogging along the Main river, while listening to music or podcasts, it´s my way of switching off from work.

7:00pm: Cooking and eating dinner is the time we spend together as a family on weekdays. Sometimes, like tonight, it´s warm enough outside, so that we can have dinner on our wonderful loggia. When the kids are in bed, I like to stay outside for another hour, talking or reading, eating a good chocolate, and calling it a night.