The German Architecture Museum (DAM) is an architecture center located on the Museumsufer (Museum Embankment) in Frankfurt am Main. As one of several museums in Germany dedicated exclusively to architecture (-> Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Munich in the Pinakothek der Moderne, Karlsruhe Southwest German Architecture Archive, Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin), it continues the tradition of academic model collections of the 19th century.
From 1979 to 1984, a neoclassical semi-detached villa built in 1912 in the Sachsenhausen-Nord district was fundamentally rebuilt, redesigned, and repurposed for the DAM:[2][3] After gutting the building, a white reinforced concrete structure was installed inside, a house-within-a-house. A single-story exhibition hall was built as an extension on the former garden area, and an entrance area was added to the front of the building, facing the River Main, significantly altering the historical impression of the villa. The new complex was inaugurated in 1984: "This building is not only a house for architecture, but also one about architecture," said architect Oswald Mathias Ungers, who was also tasked with remodeling the Pergamon Museum. Shortly after its opening, the DAM was listed as a historical monument and carefully remodeled during the more recent renovations.
From the end of September 2021, the building was closed for renovation and reconstruction; exhibitions and events took place in the interim DAM Ostend quarters. FAZ editor Matthias Alexander wrote in 2022: "The architectural ideologist Oswald Mathias Ungers gutted a magnificent Wilhelminian villa on the banks of the Main in the early 1980s in order to implant a house within a house. Museum curators and visitors continue to suffer the consequences of his violent idea to this day: the narrow spaces are unsuitable for exhibitions, no path is intuitively found, and in the auditorium, supports block the view of the podium."[4] After completion of the construction work, the DAM reopened at its old location in early June 2025.