Westend

Westend-Nord and Westend-Süd are two city districts of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The division into a northern and a southern part is mostly for administrative purposes as the Westend is generally considered an entity. Both city districts are part of the Ortsbezirk Innenstadt II.The Westend with its Wilhelminian style buildings is a beloved residential quarter and has the highest real estate prices in Frankfurt. Many old villas serve as offices for law firms and companies of the financial community. Along with the Bahnhofsviertel, the Nordend and the Ostend, it is part of Frankfurt's dense inner city districts.HistoryWestern BoundariesLike the other districts constructed in the Wilhelminian period the Westend has been within the town walls of Frankfurt since the building of the Frankfurter Landwehr. Largely consisting of fields and heathland, it was area made up of isolated farming estates. Streets in the area still carry the names of these estates which were called Hellerhof, Hynsperghof and Kettenhof.Classicism and the Wilhelminian periodAt the beginning of the nineteenth century the old Frankfurt fortifications were razed. Soon numerous classic suburban villas with generous gardens sprang up along the Bockenheimer Landstraße, the arterial road in the neighbouring town of Bockenheim. Among them were the Gontardsche garden house and the Villa Leonhardi designed by the architect Nicolas Alexandre Salins de Montfort, as well as the Rothschildpalais of Friedrich Rumpf. Around the middle of the nineteenth century the area through the town was divided up and the streets and Squares were laid out. The narrow, built-up Frankfurter Neustadt was bursting at the seams and so people were continuously moving to the outer western town. Paris became an archetype for street construction, therefore wide boulevards as well as Squares with radial streets leading outwards began to appear.