71Other contradictions are also inherent in the discourse of Das Neue Frankfurt.
It was assumed, for instance, that there was such a thing as a homogeneous met-
ropolitan public (or that an entity like this would emerge in the future) and that this
entity would be capable of responding in an appropriate fashion to the new architec-
ture (figure 38). This assumption in fact is not compatible with the importance at-
tached to qualities such as freedom, mobility, and transitoriness. When one aims to
promote the freedom of every individual and to create as great a potential for change
as possible, it is hardly logical to assume that all these individuals will make the same
choices and will change in the same fashion. This, however, was the expectation that
lay behind the supposedly homogeneous character of the metropolitan public.
May’s treatment of the whole culture as an entity that, as it were, ceaselessly
gives form to social reality should therefore be questioned. May’s concept does not
take into account contradictory tendencies and conflicts in interest that are inevitable
in a modern society. His pastoral ideas cannot cope with contradictions that are in-
herent to capitalist development. He was therefore not capable of formulating an ad-
equate reaction when economic imperatives became an obstacle for the realization
of his cultural program.
But in the end these critical comments do not alter the fact that something of
great importance was achieved in Frankfurt. Starting out from a pastoral and pro-
grammatic concept of modernity, a large number of interventions were actually com-
pleted that have enriched the city permanently. The unidimensionality and simplicity
that were operative at a theoretical level did not extend to the built realizations. In
fact, the confrontation between the new architecture and the existing city gave rise
to an ambivalence which contained a critical utopian moment—the promise of eman-
cipation and liberation—as well as a subtle respect for the existing city as a sediment
for people’s memories and as an indispensable substratum for the future. It is pre-
cisely for this reason that estates such as Westhausen, Römerstadt, and Riedhof
form significant contributions not only to the history of Frankfurt but to that of archi-
tecture and urbanism as a whole.70