Heinrich Hoffmanns Eiskeller

Heinrich Hoffmanns Eiskeller stands on the Westend Campus of the University of Frankfurt, on ground once known as the Affensteiner Feld. The stone cylinder began life in the mid-nineteenth century as an ice store. It belonged to the Anstalt für Irre und Epileptische, known to Frankfurters as the Irrenschloss. Heinrich Hoffmann and Alois Alzheimer are among the names tied to the place. Old plans of the grounds label it an Eisgrube, an ice pit.

Every part of the design had one job: storing ice. The walls rise more than seven metres and span over five metres across, rough stone outside and regular blocks within. Inside, the chamber narrows into a cone, a shape that slows the melting of the ice it once held. The entrance is unique: a triple, lock-like door system of basalt stone guards the way in.

When the institution came down in the nineteen twenties, the ice store slipped into oblivion. The grounds later became part of the IG Farben complex, and the US Army used them after the Second World War. Only in two thousand eight, during construction work for a new library, did the cylinder come back to light. It now stands preserved as a protected monument inside the library of social sciences and psychology. You can see it from within the building, though direct access stays limited for its protection. Some original features have been altered or removed along the way, so what you see is not quite what it once was.