Seconds measured in centimeters. New Spatiality for a Cinema Centre in Frankfurt’s Altes Polizeipräsidium

In 1958, Hans Gugelot and Helmut Müller-Kühn’s design for a wheeled television represented a shift in how television and cinematic spaces can be conceptualized, introducing mobility to a previously static entertainment furniture piece. This mobility has evolved into the ubiquitous screens of today, transforming entertainment consumption and fragmenting traditional collective spaces such as the Odeon-like cinema. As the enduring popularity of film festivals in Frankfurt am Main indicates a persistent demand for collective cinema experiences, the project explores the Gestalt of cinema, television, and cinematic space. This takes the form of a dispersed reuse within an ensemble of the police headquarter built between 1911 and the 1960s, which faces an unclear future after the insolvency of a high-rise development. A series of incisions opens the complex to the city and houses functions connected to film culture to serve as a complementary institution to the array of small cinemas and the Deutsche Filminstitut und Filmmuseum. By introducing a play of observing and being observed, Seconds measured in centimeters re-spatializes the controlled boundaries of the police headquarters towards what Edgar Reitz calls a new “Kinotopia.”