The Five-Finger Square (German: Fünffingerplätzchen) was a small place in the old town of the German city of Frankfurt am Main, which was formed by the meeting of five narrow streets. It was east of the east line of the Römerberg market square, south of the market street, west of the Langen Schirn and north of Bendergasse. The popular postcard motif and tourist destination was destroyed in an air raid on March 22, 1944. Instead of a possible reconstruction, the city decided after the war to remove the rubble. The area was built over in the early 1970s and with the construction of the Römerberg-Ostzeile from 1981 to 1983 and the Kunsthalle Schirn from 1984 to 1986. The western entrance to the Schirn Rotunda is located on the site of the former Five-Finger Square, making reconstruction impossible.
Origin, history and destruction
The appearance of the Five-Finger Square was unique for Frankfurt as well as in comparison with other medieval half-timbered towns. It was the central convergence point of several small streets; Schwertfegergässchen, Drachengässchen, Goldhutgasse and Flößergasse.
The Rapunzelgässchen, which ran directly behind what is today the Römerberg-Ostzeile, met the Flößergasse shortly before the entrance to the square. The name came from the fact that from a bird's eye view the very narrow passages of the old town or rows of buildings merged like the fingers of one hand.
Regarding the natural urban planning origin, two different theories are in balance: one follows the assumption that the north gate of the Merovingian Palatinate was located on the site of the five-finger square. Similar to later town planning in the Baroque era, the streets were laid out in a radial direction leading to the gate and were simply built over in the following centuries while maintaining this floor plan. The other theory argues that another large marketplace similar to the Römerberg was located on the site but in the early Middle Ages, the old town was short of space and the market was built over due to the shifting market activities.
In the middle of the 14th century, as descriptions of the times detail, a further passage called Löhergasse ran east of Goldhutgasse from Flößergasse towards the market. Later development led to the southern part of the former Löhergasse becoming a back yard for the surrounding houses on the market, the Langen Schirn and the Bendergasse. The house Little Paradise (Street address: Markt 27 ) could be due to its remarkably bent front (see picture.): This was because it was half built on an original street entrance, as could still be seen by the 20th century.
On the other hand, the earliest surviving topographical representations of Frankfurt, such as the plan by Conrad Faber von Creuznach from 1552 or the famous bird 's eye view plan by Matthäus Merian the Elder from 1628, showed that Löhergasse was already overbuilt and the Five-Finger Square was therefore almost in the same condition as it was in the 20th century. Accordingly, due to the constant lack of building land, the development was narrowed, at least roughly, in the period between 1350 and 1552. The shape of the Little Paradise allows a dating between 1470 and 1550 due to the exposed, transition-time half-timbering in the gable.
The Square remained largely unchanged for centuries. It was only when tourism emerged at the end of the 19th century that it was rediscovered and quickly made a popular travel destination and a frequent photo and postcard motif. Within a few years, it had become, in addition to other classic old Frankfurt views such as the Kannengießergasse or the Roseneck, the highest representative status for the beauty and type of the old town of Frankfurt.
On the other hand, in the second half of the 19th century (between 1862 and 1877 ) the rather small houses with the address Goldhutgasse 1 and 3 were torn down for unexplained reasons. The reason, as was so often the case at this time, was most likely dilapidation. In fact, the entire structure of the old town was in a catastrophic condition at the turn of the century. The unplastered and therefore unsightly firewall of the adjoining house at Drachengasse 5 now shaped the place until the 1930s. It therefore did not appear on most postcards from that time or is only slightly cut out of the photos.
At the end of the 1930s, a large-scale renovation of the old town was carried out in Frankfurt am Main. In contrast to the historicist renovations at the turn of the century, which often destroyed more substance than redeveloped ones, and the only superficial measures taken by the federal government of old town friends in the 1920s, they largely took place under modern monument conservation aspects.