If you take the S-Bahn, you can expect a lot at the stations - in a positive sense too, because there is something to eat at many stations, fresh baked goods or a coffee to take away, for example.

But many S-Bahn stations are getting on in years, the walls are smeared, and there is a stink in many corners.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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For some time now, Deutsche Bahn has been looking at the S-Bahn stations in the Rhine-Main area and especially in Frankfurt. It is supported by a Corona economic stimulus program launched by the Federal Ministry of Transport in 2020. But the state of Hesse had already funded a modernization program of Deutsche Bahn in 2018 with more than four million euros and thus assumed a fifth of the total costs of around 21 million euros.

The purpose of the renovation projects announced at the time was to make the S-Bahn stations clearer and lighter and to modernize them so that orientation is easier. The notice installed in the Westbahnhof in the same year “To Paris via Hauptbahnhof”, which a young FAZ photographer noticed on her get-to-know tour through Frankfurt, actually points out to passengers where to find the right platform for the main train station and, if necessary, also in the direction of Paris, because from the main train station you can get to the capital of France several times a day without having to change trains. But of course it's also art. Deutsche Bahn speaks of a "creative wayfinding".

But a lot more has happened at the Westbahnhof.

Dirty graffiti was removed, the walls, which were largely tiled there, were cleaned, and elsewhere walls and ceilings as well as the lighting were modernized.

In addition, as Leif Niklas Wulf, head of Frankfurt station management, reports, the railway has removed poster holders and chewing gum machines and installed digital boards that display the current timetable.

And as a supplement to the classic wayfinding system, there is the creative that Wulf is proud of.

Prevent vandalism with graffiti

A friendly appearance that may even make some people smile - that is also the aim that Deutsche Bahn pursued when redesigning the two entrances to the Galluswarte S-Bahn station on Frankenallee. The Offenbach graffiti artist Thekra Jaziri painted the walls colorfully and with oversized motifs at the end of last year. On around 350 square meters of wall space, she had brought plant tendrils, flowers and the characteristic Frankfurt apple wine glass, the "ribbed", to the walls of the station. "I just wanted to make the room more cheerful," says the graduate of the Offenbach University of Design. Station manager Wulf hopes to be able to influence the passengers positively in this way and thus ultimately to prevent vandalism. After all, in non-Corona times, 40 happens.000 people a day at the Galluswarte S-Bahn station. And even if many only used the access to the platforms for a short time, “they should still feel comfortable,” says Wulf.

The two entrances to the Galluswarte are not the first work that Thekra Jaziri has undertaken on behalf of Deutsche Bahn. The Mühlberg S-Bahn station also bears her signature: there the artist, in collaboration with her Frankfurt colleague Florian Lübke, had a 30-meter-long and up to five-meter high wall on the escalator to the S-Bahn station with the seven herbs from Frankfurt Decorated green sauce. Because from there it is not far to the Oberräder Gardens, where the ingredients for the traditional Frankfurt dish are grown. At this S-Bahn station, too, Jaziri has again worked oversized and with a lot of color, only the huge images of borage, chervil, cress, parsley, pimpinelle, sorrel and chives are copied from nature and kept in green.

At the Mühlberg S-Bahn station, however, Deutsche Bahn deemed it necessary to do more than clean the station and have the walls artistically designed.

There, nocturnal patrols ensure that the S-Bahn station is not over soon again when the S-Bahn station has been prepared.

With its funding, the state of Hesse insisted that walls should be clad with colored glass and that a guidance system for the visually impaired should be installed on the floor.