Commercial buildings

With industrialisation, many tradesmen had the desire to present themselves and their goods. For this purpose, the first three halls were built for an exhibition park on Theresienhöhe in Munich in 1907 and 1908. On the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city, the site was opened with the "Munich 1908" exhibition.

This was a large-scale showcase of "Munich’s production and trade". Franz Zell exhibited there alongside the architects Friedrich von Thiersch, Hans Grässel and Gabriel von Seidl. For Zell, the exhibition was another step in his career as a sought-after architect: "Munich 1908 exhibition design for the large beer hall chosen for execution. The rural model inn [...] at this exhibition was a particular success, producing a number of contracts and making my firm one of the busiest in Munich from then." (Franz Zell, 1936).

Models of Zell’s schoolhouse in Stein near Aschau and of the Schnitzschule in Oberammergau were on display in the Munich Architects and Engineers Association’s room. Various views of the reading hall (no longer preserved) built in Berchtesgaden in 1907 were exhibited.

Zell’s firm now received numerous contracts: for inns, hotel buildings, for a town hall in St. Gilgen in Austria and for the restoration of Memmingen’s town hall, for pavilion buildings, forestry and hunting lodges.

Michaela Thomas