In the centre of the picturesque little town of Kronberg with its timber-framed houses, Kronberg’s Stadthalle (Municipal Hall) is also the nerve centre and main information point during the Kronberg Academy Festival.

The historical part with its ceremonial hall was built in 1907. The building was originally the dining room of the tuberculosis sanatorium in Falkenstein and was purchased by the town of Kronberg when the sanatorium moved out. In 1991/92 it underwent a thorough renovation and an entrance foyer and semicircular extension were added.

The Receptur, constructed over the underground vaults of the mediaeval Westerburg dates from the time of the Electorate of Mainz. Its inner courtyard is entered through an archway that dates back to the 16th century. The name is derived from the building’s function as a cross between an administrative building and the tax office. In 1976 the Receptur was purchased by the Kronberg municipality and opened as a cultural centre. The Receptur also houses Kronberg Academy’s administrative offices.

The Streitkirche (Conflict Church) was built between 1737 and 1739 in the immediate proximity of the Johanniskirche (Lutheran) as a baroque Catholic “counter church” as the town had belonged to the Roman Catholic Electorate of Mainz since 1704. The Streitkirche is symbolic of the recatholisation ordered by the electoral state, although there were contractual provisions to allow people to retain the Protestant faith under Catholic territorial rule. The building was never consecrated and after the roof-top tower was removed, it began to be used for non-religious purposes. Kronberg Academy’s young soloists study on the second floor, while the historical rooms which provide intimate venues for public workshops are on the first floor.

The church’s impressive simplicity is inescapable. It was built in 1876/77 as a Catholic parish church in neo-Gothic style based on a design by the well-known Frankfurt architect Max Meckel. The most valuable inventory item is the late Gothic altar of Mary (1500). A new sacristy and baptismal chapel were added in 1959, extensive renovation and transformation work was carried out in 1962, a new altar and chancel procured in 1991, and the nave and the stations of the cross were restored in 2001.

The late Gothic single-nave church was built roughly between 1440 and 1450 to include the chancel of the previous church on the site (1355), the rest of which was destroyed in the town fire of 1437. The interior contains a large number of epitaphs and a wooden wagon ceiling dating from 1617. The most valuable inventory item is the altar of Mary on the right-hand wall of the nave. On instruction from Victoria, Empress Frederick (widow of Frederick III), the church was renovated in 1898 and the murals were uncovered and supplemented. The Empress’s funeral service held in the church in August 1901. The church underwent a further thorough renovation in 1965-67.

The Zehntscheune (tithe barn) was built in the 16th century by the Lords of Kronberg as the place to gather the citizens’ levies in kind (the tithe). It is one of the oldest tithe barns in the federal state of Hesse. It was severely damaged in the town fire in 1792 and subsequently rebuilt. The interior timber-framed construction is particularly valuable. In 1848 the tithe barn was purchased by the municipality and in the 19th and 20th centuries was at times used by the fire service to store its equipment. The town bought the adjacent Kilb’s Barn after 1945. The two buildings were completely renovated in 1992 and have since been a café-bistro and venue for cultural events.

The castle in Kronberg im Taunus was built on a rocky promontory on the southern slope of the Taunus hills. It is not known exactly when people first began to live in the castle. What we do know, however, is that the five-cornered tower is the oldest construction in the upper castle area. The upper castle area is maintained as a ruin but anyone who climbs the nearly 44 metres to the top of the free-standing tower is rewarded by a panorama view across the surrounding area and on clear days even as far as the Spessart and Odenwald regions. The upper castle area is thought to have been constructed in the 12th century as an imperial castle. It was used to assert royal power and to keep watch over the road to Cologne. The renovated heraldic hall (Wappensaal) was reopened in 2016. The Prince’s Garden (Prinzengarten) in the castle grounds affords what is probably the best view across the entire town – surrounded by an enchanting garden, visitors look out across the rooftops of Kronberg’s historical old town to the skyline of cosmopolitan Frankfurt.

The villa takes its present name from the painter Heinrich Winter (1843-1911), who was a member of the Kronberg Artists’ Colony. In 1874, Winter married Johanna Müller (1855-1930) from Frankfurt, the daughter of a banker, and lived with her in this building until the end of his life in 1911. The villa, which was built in around 1810, originally stood at 13 Neue Mainzer Strasse in Frankfurt am Main. In 1870, the property was needed to make way for an opening onto Kaiserstrasse, and banker H Carl W Müller sold his plot of land to the city of Frankfurt. The impressive residence itself, however, was dismantled and transported to Kronberg in sections to be rebuilt here before the gates of the old town, on a once park-like estate. Kronberg town acquired the building in 1935 and accommodated the secondary school here from 1939 to 1977. In 2002, the villa was largely gutted, converted into a youth centre and used as such until late 2011. It was subsequently used for a variety of purposes, renovated and then re-opened, in part as an art museum, in April 2018.

From the 1860s onwards, Baruch and Betty Bonn (née Schuster) had a country seat in Kronberg which served as a summer residence for the extensive family of Frankfurt bankers. Following Baruch Bonn’s death, Philipp Bonn and his sister, Charlotte Wetzlar, took over management of the house on behalf of the family. After Philipp’s death, his brother Wilhelm had the existing buildings demolished and the imposing villa that can be seen today built in their place. Bonn had been sent to New York in 1863 as an employee of the Frankfurt banking firm Lazard-Speyer-Ellissen, where he rose to become managing director of the banking subsidiary Speyer & Co. Frankfurt’s banks and the company founded by Bonn, Ruette & Bonn, were heavily involved in financing the American railways. In 1885, he returned to Frankfurt as a partner in Lazard-Speyer-Ellissen, and used the fortune acquired from his endeavours to make generous donations to a wide variety of causes. Wilhelm Bonn died in Kronberg in 1910. Around this time, the family as a whole became centred in England, and so his son, Sir Max Bonn, finally sold the property in 1922 to the town of Kronberg, where it has been used as the Town Hall ever since.

Located in the heart of Frankfurt, the Alte Oper is a magnet for anyone interested in culture. The entrance bears the inscription “Dem Wahren, Schoenen, Guten” (To the true, the beautiful, the good). The former opera house, originally built in Neorenaissance style, was inaugurated in 1880, destroyed during World War II and gradually rebuilt from 1976 onwards. Today the historical facade conceals a vibrant concert hall.

The Hessian Broadcasting Corporation took over its current Frankfurt p remises in 1951, following the decision by the Parliamentary Council (the predecessor of the present Bundestag ) in 1949 to locate the federal capital in Bonn rather than in Frankfurt. The newly built facilities had actually been planned as the seat of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament . The “rotunda” was modelled on the circular Paulskirche in Frankfurt (seat of the all-German Parliament in 1848)  and originally intended to be the Bundestag’s plenary hall. Until 1999 it was used to house all radio broadcasting studios. The listed Gold Hall, which was to have been the lobby at the entrance to the Bundestag’s plenary hall, is today used for exhibitions and as part of the foyer of the broadcasting hall that was later built onto the side of the rotunda. The broadcasting hall is a concert hall with seating for up to 850. It is also Frankfurt Radio Symphony’s regular rehearsal studio and the radio broadcasting studio.