Couple of style conditions are as layered as the lived in palimpsest– a historic building asked to take in a contemporary life without surrendering what made it worth maintaining in the first location. Penthouse Frankfurt, finished by Munich-based workshop and studio Holzrausch, browses exactly this tension. The Wilhelminian period left behind an extremely specific architectural grammar– deep floor plates, kindly proportioned spaces, and load-bearing masonry. Instead of smooth over these conditions or treat them as a neutral background, Holzrausch worked the existing fabric into the logic of the intervention itself.
The two-story roofing extension that crowns the structure is the task’s boldest move, and its most structurally clarifying one. By constructing a brand-new volume above the historic shell, the project differentiates legibly in between what was found and what was made. Inside, Kambala– an African wood with a warm amber grain that oxidizes gracefully– runs as full-height panelling across spaces, built-ins, and blood circulations alike, working as a continuous spatial membrane.
Warm-brushed stainless-steel satisfies terrazzo and stained timber within the kitchen area. Holzrausch, running as a single-source provider with designers, construction planners, and craftspeople in constant dialogue, was especially well positioned to resolve these junctions. Completion result is coherent precisely because no single aspect was thought about in isolation from the whole.
The client included an art collection, of which needed a space with walls that do not contend, and blood circulation that allowed for continual attention. The calm sequencing of spaces was a direct action to this need, with the Kambala shell providing a visual ground warm enough to humanize the spaces without asserting itself against the works on display. It is a balance that gallery-adjacent homes often fail to strike, defaulting either to the medical neutrality of a white cube or to an abundant domesticity that overwhelms the collection.
< img src="https://design-milk.com/images/2026/03/penthouse-frankfrut-holzrausch-3-810x1080.jpg" alt="Modern home office with built-in wooden racks, books, a desk with a chair, and big moving glass doors opening to a garden patio with plant outside." width="810" height="1080"/ > View more info on Holzrausch’s site. Photography by Salva Lopez. < img src="https://design-milk.com/images/2021/11/leo-lei-200x200-1-100x100.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt =""/ > Leo Lei translates his enthusiasm for minimalism into his daily-updated blog Leibal. In addition, you can find distinctively created minimalist objects and furniture at the Leibal Shop.