Platz der Republik
From the Platz der Republik, you can enjoy a view of the skyscrapers along the Mainzer Landstraße and the Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage. On the right side, at the Mainzer Landstraße intersection, you can see the City House. The 142 metre building is also known as the Selmi high-rise. Ali Selmi was the builder of the building, which was constructed between 1971 and 1974 in accordance with plans by Richard Heil.
Farther right along the Mainzer Landstraße, you can see the Westend Tower. Together with the City House, it forms the central office of the DZ-Bank. The Westend Tower is also known as the Kronenhochhaus due to the corona at its top. At 208 metres high, it is one of the highest skyscrapers in the city of Frankfurt and Germany. The Westend Tower was designed by the architect William Pedersen and completed in 1993. The wreath at its top is intended to refer to Frankfurtʼs role as the coronation city of the German Kaiser. For this reason, it is oriented toward the Frankfurt Römerberg, where the coronations took place. The corona is heated in the winter to prevent the formation of icicles and the related danger to the traffic areas below it.
Police headquarters building
The former police headquarters building along the left side of the Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage was opened in 1914. Since the police headquarters moved into a new structure on Alleenring, the building is mostly vacant. The police headquarters building was built in the historicist style, a mixture of neo-baroque and classicism and is a protected historic building.
Matthäuskirche
The next building on the left after the police headquarters building is the protestant Matthäuskirche from the year 1905. It was heavily damaged during the war and the modern building is therefore primarily a product of the postwar period. The congregation has now shrunk to a few 100 members, which led the Regional Association of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau to decide in 2002 to abandon the building and to sell it for demolition. The local church congregation is fighting this vehemently.
The Frankfurt Westend
Along with the Bahnhof district, the Nordend, and the Ostend, the Westend is one of the inner city districts of Frankfurt that were developed during the Wilhelminian period and is densely populated. Even today, it is one of the most expensive living areas in Frankfurt and primarily stretches on your right along the route to the trade fair grounds of the city of Frankfurt.
The southern part of Westend, together with the western inner city and the eastern Bahnhof district, form the Frankfurt banking district with its numerous high-rise office buildings.
In addition, there are an above-average number of educational institutions in Westend, in particular the “Uni-Campus Bockenheim” of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, and the Senckenberg Museum.