Location - Conference Venue

The conference venue is located on the historical Campus Westend of Goethe University (Grüneburgweg 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main) which is one of the most impressive university locations in Germany with an extraordinary architecture.

A part of the property was owned by the father of the famous German poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He spent his youth in Frankfurt and enjoyed the beautiful garden. At the end of the 18^th century the property was sold to the banker Peter Heinrich von Bethman-Metzler, and became property of the Rothschild family in 1837.

In 1864 Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann raised private money to establish the city's psychiatric hospital, a break-through in modern psychiatry. He appointed Alois Alzheimer (1888 – 1903 at the hospital) who made his breakthrough observations on Alzheimer‘s disease with his patient Auguste Deter in Frankfurt.

In 1925 the world´s largest chemical company, IG Farben, decided to locate their headquarters in Frankfurt.

The famous architect Hans Poelzig (1869-1936) won a limited competition and started working on the building in 1928. He used a steel frame of 4.600 tons which was filled with bricks. For the first time in Germany, Poelzig practiced American „just in time“ production. The project was completed in just 24 months with 1.000 workers. Until 1950 it was the largest office building in Europe with 25.000 square meters. The historical protected gardens were designed by Max Bromme (1878-1974).

During the Nazi period the building had a very sad history. IG Farben role as a major supporter of the Hitler regime. A permanent exhibition provides information about this part of the buildings history.

After Second World War, the European Headquarter of the United States army was located on this site and many important decisions were taken by the later US president Ike Eisenhower, including the federal states territories. During the blockade of Berlin in 1948, General Lucius D. Clay who was the head of the US military government organized the famous air-borne supply of Berlin at Campus Westend.

After the German unification in 1989, the IG Farben building was given to the State of Hessen. The buildings were carefully renovated taking care of the historical conservation.

After extension, Campus Westend currently accommodates faculties of law, economics, theology, philosophy and history, linguistics, and modern languages. Further faculties and the administration of Goethe University will follow and the move will be completed in 2014.

Campus Westend is in walking distance (app. 1 km) from Frankfurt city center. There are numerous famous attractions along with the outstanding architecture of the IG Farben building with its Pater Noster elevator system and the beautiful gardens.