Jewish Museum  Frankfurt

After a successful tendering phase, an exciting task awaited our team - an exposed roof made of expanded metal elements on the extension of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt. The communicated goal of Staab Architekten was to achieve a building envelope that was as homogeneous as possible.

Since this was only a visible roof, the expanded metal elements made of powder-coated steel naturally did not have any water-bearing function. In order to ensure the watertightness of the roof surface with a roof pitch of approximately 12°, the first step was to seal it with a 2-layer bitumen seal with mineral thermal insulation, into which the supports for our load-bearing substructure had to be enclosed. The upper edge of the parapet defined the level of the elements, which were stretched as so-called system cassettes in a frame with a format of 90 cm x 180 cm to be finally assembled on the construction site after prefabrication was completed. A particular challenge here was that the actual sealing level did not run parallel to the screen of the roof cladding for reasons of spatial design in the interior. The substructure with its optionally adjustable supports had to be precisely adjusted to the theoretical position. Another requirement of the architects was to manufacture and assemble the elements in a uniform structure. For this purpose, the expanded metal had to be stretched during production in such a way that it could ensure a continuation of the rhombuses across the elements in the longitudinal and transverse directions. To ensure that our system met the high demands of the design, it was custom-made for this project. Of course, the long-standing cooperation between our company and Staab Office, with whom we have already been able to realize similar projects such as the roof of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament in Stuttgart, proved to be helpful. A professional and reliable relationship between craftsmanship and architecture, always ready to turn forward-looking ideas into reality!