The Kunsthalle Schirn was designed and built beginning in 1983 by the Architekturbüro (Dietrich Bangert, Bernd Jansen, Stefan Jan Scholz, and Axel Schultes). The opening took place on 28 February 1986. The Kunsthalle has an overall exhibition space of more than . The Schirn is located in Frankfurt's historic city center. Faced with light sandstone, it consists of several interlocking structures, each of which features a geometric floor plan. The most prominent structural element is an approximately 140-meter-long and 10-meter-wide 6-story hall, the actual exhibition building, which runs from east to west. Additional structural elements are arranged somewhat to the west of the middle of this longhouse along an imaginary transverse axis: to the south, facing
Saalgasse, a multistory cube with a rectangular floor plan (ca. 18 x 25 m), and adjoining it, parallel to the longhouse, an elongated rectangular expansion. The second most prominent structural element besides the main exhibition building follows on the north side of the main axis: the sky-domed rotunda, approximately twenty meters in diameter, which constitutes the monumental main entrance. It is the Schirn's highest structure and consists of a single open space, through which one enters the Schirn. After passing through the rotunda, a chasm cut into the building runs along the old
Bendergasse. A further semicircular structural element follows to the north, beyond Bendergasse, which with a somewhat more than twofold radius features the same center of circle as the rotunda. This structure, separated from the main exhibition building by Bendergasse, houses the Schirn Café. A rectangular opening has been incorporated into the east end of this structural element in which an approximately three-story tall, oversized table with no specific purpose once stood at the street level, which was demolished within the scope of the
Dom-Römer Project, the reconstruction of Frankfurt's historic city center, in August 2012. The name "Schirn" derives from the history of its location. The word originally denoted an "open sales booth." The site on which the Schirn Kunsthalle is currently situated was Frankfurt's densely populated historic city center until it was destroyed during the Second World War, on 22 March 1944. The sales booths of the city's butchers' guild stood in the narrow alleys between today's Schirn and the Main River until the mid-19th century. Starting in spring 2025, the Schirn Kunsthalle will close for several years due to extensive renovations and will temporarily move to the building of the
Dondorf printing company in the
Bockenheim district of Frankfurt ().
Directors was the director of the Schirn from 1985 to 1993, and during that same period the chief executive of the Kulturgesellschaft Frankfurt mbH. He established the Schirn as an exhibition venue. His successor was . The Austrian
Max Hollein was the director from 2001 to 2016. In 2006 Hollein also took over the directorship of the
Städel Museum and the
Liebieghaus. With exceptional exhibitions, provocative titles, and improved financial resources he has increased the number of visitors to the Schirn threefold. Since 2022, Sebastian Baden is director of the Schirn, succeeding
Philipp Demandt. == Exhibitions ==