The high-rise ensemble is a classic example of the obvious reuse and renewal of architectural vocabulary.
Existing elements and principles are adapted, recombined, and adjusted for a new purpose—architecture is presented not as a new creation but as a continuous development out of what is already available.
The natural flow of the open reference to preexisting buildings, typologies, and elements was clipped off by historicist tendencies in the rupture of modernity.
Today, decades after the efforts of postmodernism to reclaim architectural history for contemporary building, confusion about terminology still dominates.
"Modern" is not "contemporary," but a "style" derived from Bauhaus and International Modernism.
Max Dudler's work defies such categorization. The architect sees the seamless continuity from western architecture to antiquity as a wellspring of creation. Dudler's Ulmenstrasse high-rise complex in Frankfurt makes reference to the "modern" high-rise typology by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as well as "classical" architectural themes such as base, order, and capital.
Built in the early 1970s in Frankfurt's Westend, the high-rise complex was appended, extensively renovated, and redesigned.
Individual buildings were brought together in a high-rise ensemble that also makes intentional reference to the surrounding Wilhelminian-era architecture.