Messeturm Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 49 60327 Frankfurt am Main
Opening hours:
Usually Mon to Thu 10 am to 4 pm, only by arrangement.
Holdings and specialist collections:
The library of the German Design Council provides access to current information on nearly all areas of design, with a special focus on international product and industrial design. Selections of literature from the fields of visual communication, interior design, architecture and art are also available.
Established in the early 1960s, the library has some 15,000 books, videos, CD-ROMs and DVDs in its stock. The information on offer is further enhanced by the regular issues of approximately 100 international magazines in the abovementioned areas. Due to the library's specialization in the areas of collection, it provides an interesting selection of volumes on the history of design worldwide. The latter include a number of extremely rare publications and magazines from as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, and especially of the 1950s and 1960s.
The German Design Council also has a historical photo archive with 40,000 photos and 20,000 slide positives. It mainly contains images of serial products from the period between 1950 and 1980. About half of the photographs have already been digitised and are freely searchable in the Deutschen Fotothek. The collection can be used for academic and non-commercial projects.
Workstations, copy machines and scanners are available for use by the library's visitors.
How to get there:
S3, S4, S5, S6: Messe / Entrance Torhaus
Parking available by previous arrangement only.
