Public – urban spaces for everyone
Bike Tour of Frankfurt Petrol Stations and Lecture
Cycling Tour
When? 11 July 2025, 15:00
What? A cycling tour of Frankfurt’s petrol stations – and sites where they once stood
Start: Braubachstraße 3, Frankfurt
With Valentin Fuchs from the City of Frankfurt’s Housing Department and Paola Wechs, Vacancy Manager for the City of Frankfurt.
On this cycling tour, we will visit petrol stations that reveal their unique character as social spaces – places with potential for future use, or sites that have already been abandoned.
The tour ends at “The Station”, a brewery located in a former petrol station on Öder Weg.
Please remember to bring enough water.
Talk
When? 19:00
What? Talk by Janis Bärenfänger: “Gasoline Dreams”
Where? BDA Hessen Office, Braubachstraße 11
In his talk, Janis Bärenfänger explores how the cinematic portrayal of the petrol station has changed over the past hundred years, and which recurring themes and visual motifs continue to be used.
Petrol stations are more than just infrastructure for cars. They serve as small local suppliers, places of communication, spaces of nostalgia, glowing landmarks – but also as representatives of a vast fossil fuel industry. For decades, they have been a familiar part of our urban landscape. But petrol stations are gradually disappearing: the transition to sustainable mobility and electromobility is leading to the obsolescence of the classic fossil-fuel station, making it a relic of a bygone era.
The exhibition documents all operational and, since 2020, closed fossil-fuel stations in the city of Frankfurt am Main, accompanied by explanatory infographics.