Harry Hairstrong needs a lot of strength to open the blue security gate.

He slowly bends his knees and arches his back.

With a quick jerk, a small gap opens, with a vehement pull the entire gate just behind Tanzhaus West on Frankfurt's Gutleutstrasse.

What is hidden behind it is a gem of Hessian industrial architecture - the Alte Schmelze, which is now filled with art.

The factory building was created at the height of the industrial revolution.

Kevin Hanschke

volunteer.

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"It's a very special historical and architectural jewel," says Haarstark, who runs his studio for special effects and pyrotechnics next door, on the Milchsack area in front of the Technoclub Tanzhaus West and the Theater Landungsbrücken.

He has been dealing with the history of the milk sack area for many years.

Basically, he is considered the historian of the entire Gutleutviertel.

Harry Haarstark, whose first name is Gunther, was born in Frankfurt in 1959 and worked as a cameraman for many years after studying art history.

"At some point I realized that special effects were going to be the next big thing in film.

I wanted to be part of that.” That's why he founded a studio for pyrotechnics and film effects in the 1980s.

Among other things, he works for the "Sending with the Mouse", for the Frankfurt "Tatort" episodes or in various crime productions with Hannelore Elsner, which he is particularly proud of today.

Place of work and performance for many artists

But the history of Frankfurt never let him go, he says.

He wrote his diploma thesis on urban development after the war.

Haarstark is particularly interested in the development of the Gutleutviertel and Griesheim – which is why he has been the district historian responsible for both quarters for several years.

Together with the other tenants on the site, he also takes care of the Alte Schmelze, which is how he found out all sorts of details about its history.

In 1899, the factory was commissioned and built by the entrepreneur Ludwig Wilhelm von Gans to produce meat extract, which was needed for the food supply of the Frankfurt population.

“The architecture is quite special and almost completely preserved.

The clinker is a very light brown, the chimney enabled modern ventilation, and the factory is designed to be efficient,” says Haarstark.

That was also necessary, because up until the 1920s, more precisely until 1928, broth was produced and fat was processed here in three huge cauldrons.

"Tastier and half the price of American meat extract" says the poster of the SIRIS Society from 1928, which Haarstark discovered in an archive during his research.

In the 1930s, the site was then used as a paint factory by Carl Milchsack, who had printing inks manufactured on the premises.

In May 1999, after more than sixty years on Gutleutstraße, the printing ink factory filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations.

The Milchsack grandson and cabaret artist Peter Peters took care of the area as managing director of the community of heirs for a long time and made studio space, work and performance locations possible for many artists and creative people.

A car repair shop first moved into the Alte Schmelze.

“Little by little and with the help of bank loans, the former paint factory was made usable and subdivided for the needs of cultural workers,” Haarstark recalls.

Two years before the printing ink factory was closed, Peters had rented a vacant hall to the “Space Place” techno club.

Haarstark has been working on the site for ten years and has set up his studio in one of the administration buildings.

"The story of these factory buildings must go on"

Finally, in January 2021, the housing company KEG acquired the site.

She wants to ensure that the artists can stay and also build apartments in the back of the Milchsack area.

People know each other well, work, live and celebrate together, is how Haarstark describes the atmosphere.

Among other things, the summer garden, which is organized again this year by the Milchsackverein, lives from mutual support.

"It attracts the whole city."

Now that the car repair shop has moved out, the Alte Schmelze has become a new exhibition center: Since July, the rooms have been used by Frankfurt artists as part of the summer garden.

The focal points of the exhibitions are expansive installations, digital media art through to filigree drawings and sculptures, says Haarstark.

The filigree stone sculptures by Yasuaki Kitagawa will be on display for a few more days.

Haarstark himself is planning to set up an installation in the Alte Schmelze - in the corner where the huge vats and pots used to be, in which the fat was melted.

"The plaster on the wall has crumbled off so much that it looks as if there had been a large jet of flame." Haarstark was so inspired by this that he planned a fire installation himself.

The next exhibition is currently being prepared.

In September, the artist Daniel Hartlaub, who became known in Frankfurt above all for the “Art Column”, an exhibition project that transforms an advertising column in Sachsenhausen into a gallery space, will fill the Alte Schmelze with room-filling drawings.

"The history of these factory buildings must go on," says Haarstark, "right here, with the art, in the heart of the milk sack."