With around 100,000 inhabitants, Hanau is a small but important city in the Rhine-Main area. Its urban centre, rebuilt after the Second World War, has however been criticised for years for being monotonous and without charm. What is the central area of Hanau today was founded in the late 16th century as a new town, but few historical constants survived the severe war damage. Among these are the chess-like street grid, a relic of the Baroque planned town, and the Walloon-Dutch Church (1611), whose name testifies to the influx of Calvinists from France and the Spanish Netherlands fleeing persecution for their beliefs. After 1945 the smaller, formerly Dutch part of this double church was rebuilt; the larger, formerly Walloon part, which had twelve sides, is preserved only as a ruin. In 2010 a master plan for urban development in the southern part of the town centre was drawn up and since then the area immediately around the Walloon-Dutch Church, bounded ring-road-like by Französische Allee, has been in a phase of regeneration.

The local authority housing association commissioned Stefan Forster Architekten to build a new residential block just to the east of the church. This was to replace a 1952 apartment building which had serious structural defects and no longer conformed to modern standards because the individual apartments were too small, the staircases were too narrow and the sanitary installations were dilapidated. Like its predecessor the unassuming U-shaped new block follows the outline of the city block precisely, and draws a clear borderline towards the west along the edge of the square. The proportions of the building volume, the materiality of the façade and the roof form adhere to the guidelines (the “façade bible”) laid down for city-centre development, and blend into the context of the southern part of this central urban area. Rising above the clinker base with raised ground floor are three upper storeys with extensive glazing and a range of render detail. The reddish pitched roof with distinctive dormer windows is aligned with the historic building characteristics of Hanau. Each of the apartments has a loggia on the street side and a balcony on the courtyard side. The apartments on the top floor have roof terraces, overlooking the street and the inner courtyard. As part of the redevelopment of the area around the church, not only the buildings around the edge of the church square are being rebuilt (the blocks on the south, west and east sides), the church square itself, previously used as a car park, is being transformed back into a car-free, park-like urban green space.