Tour through the Historic Site

The Orphanage in a Colored Copper Cngraving around 1750

It has been proven that the building was equipped with a mansard roof for the first time in the region. This roof construction creates an additional floor and thus allows optimal use of space. The restrained decoration of the front of the building was a style-forming feature of a Baroque movement that was characterised by a sober, sober style as an expression of Pietist Protestantism.

The Orphanage around the political turnaround of 1990 (view from 1992).

At the beginning of the German reunification process, the Historic Orphanage was in a state of ruin. The windows were missing panes, the building was full of pigeon droppings and the wood was badly damaged. Today, it shines again as magnificently as it did 300 years ago. In an unprecedented renovation project, the orphanage was saved between 1993 and 1995. Today, it is once again widely recognised as an outstanding cultural monument.

This spacious building, dating from 1732–1734, provided classrooms and living quarters for orphan boys. A solid stone structure with large windows and light rooms, it symbolises Francke’s innovative and internationally acclaimed approach to orphan care.

From 1717 onwards, the building served as a bakery and brewery supplying the school town. With the increasing number of orphan girls, teaching and living quarters for orphan girls were created here after extensive renovation work (1741–1744).

Constructed in 1713–1716, Europe’s largest timber-framed residential building housed theology students and pupils of the Latin grammar school. At 115 metres long with a grid-pattern façade and an unassuming appearance, the Long House is architecturally unique for the baroque period.

Founded in 1697, the school with its boarding facilities provided children of the nobility and wealthy with the comprehensive education needed for their later duties in society. In the eighteenth century, this was ranked among the very best schools in Prussia.

Constructed in 1747–1748, this was the refectory for wealthier pupils at the Latin grammar school. In 1816, it became the Foundations’ administration and pay offices.

In 1726–1728 a new library was built at the Halle Orphanage. Today this is Germany’s oldest surviving independent secular building designed specifically as a library. The double-sided bookcases extending into the room saved space and resembled a theatre set.

In 1710 Carl Hildebrand von Canstein (1667–1719) founded the world’s first Bible Institute at the Orphanage in Halle. By 1938 around 10 million affordable and compact editions of the Bible had been printed here. Constructed in 1727–1735, this building housed the Institute’s printing shop and administration offices.

This building, dating from 1709–1710, symbolises Francke’s efforts to institutionalise girls’ education. It initially housed both the girls’ orphanage and elementary school.

Constructed in 1709–1710, the English House was generously funded by Anne, Queen of Great Britain (1665–1714). Primarily for pupils from England, it was indicative of the international reach of Halle Pietism and the excellent reputation of Francke’s schools.

On the ground floor of the building erected between 1710 and 1711, the dining room was used to feed pupils, carpenters, students, teachers and employees. The school town counted more than 3000 people in 1727. The large assembly hall on the upper floor of the building was used equally for church services and secular events. It became a model for many Protestant assembly halls. On Wednesdays and Saturdays public singing lessons were held here.

In 1702 Francke and his family moved into the converted ‘Zur Goldenen Rose’ tavern from the mid-seventeenth century. Until he moved to the St. Ulrich’s Church rectory in the centre of Halle in 1715, Francke directed the development of the Foundations from here.

This mid-sixteenth-century building exemplifies the houses once comprising the small town of Glaucha, the main site of Francke’s activities. Francke bought the tavern with its separate wagon house and used it for educational and social purposes.

Francke founded a printing press in the Orphanage in 1698. Well into the twentieth century it not only produced large print runs of devotional writings, but also school books used throughout Germany. The warehouse, constructed in 1732, provided storage for the books and paper.

This double cross barn from 1724 is of half-timbered construction and part of the former agricultural farm of the Francke Foundations. It is one of the best-preserved buildings in the historic school town and is the oldest surviving field barn in the city of Halle.

The Construction Timber

The Great Barn is one of the best-preserved 18th century buildings on the grounds of the Francke Foundations. In the course of the renovation, damaged wood was precisely peeled off, historic wood of the time was placed in front of it and everything was glued together. With this high level of care, the architects and builders have preserved the historic building fabric in a unique way. 

In 1729 a dairy was established to help feed the children and staff in the school town. The dairy was close to the gardens in the south of the grounds, but apart from the residential and school buildings. Livestock was kept in a stockyard, and straw and gain stored in the surrounding barns.

In 2021, the building, which was erected as part of the Francke Foundations' farmyard, was extensively renovated and handed over to the Federal Cultural Foundation for use. The historical building fabric was largely preserved during the renovation. The tow roofs were re-roofed with the historic tiles. In the basement, they are a reminder of the longstanding use of the Little Barn as a storage building.

In 1718 this building was constructed for the dairy’s abattoir and the school town’s laundry. From the start, Franke was careful to ensure proper hygiene in the school town, with everything from external latrines to an ample supply of fresh water and weekly changes of bedsheets.

The agricultural outbuilding was part oft he dairy and used fort he provision of food fort he Foundations. The whole row of houses was connected by a system of tunnels.

Work started on this house for the farm tenants in 1718. Initially the house was divided into separate living quarters and stables. The area around the dairy providing fresh produce was supplemented by the extensive gardens to the south.

In 1738–1741 the new brewery and bakery building was built opposite the Dining Hall. Underground passages connected it directly to the refectory kitchen in House 27 and to the buildings beyond.

Dating from 1721–22, this was Germany’s first children’s hospital. Primarily for children in the Foundations, the infirmary was run by the orphanage doctor, who was also a university professor. Here he introduced the systematic bedside-teaching of student doctors.

Halle’s oldest surviving printing shop building was constructed in 1743 as a warehouse for the Canstein Bible Institute. The Bible Institute’s printing shop was housed here from 1830. It was merged with the Orphanage press in 1884. At the beginning of the 20th century, a wing with large machine rooms was added to the building. Today, modern mobile shelving systems house magazines for the archive, the library and the publication's department.

Space for Magazines

At the beginning of the 20th century, a wing with large machine rooms was added to the building. Here we have now installed modern rolling shelving as additional magazine for our cultural-historical archive and library holdings, as well as storage areas for our custody. The Francke Foundations' publishing magazine is located in the basement.

New Life in the Building

The LeoLab, which was created in the course of the renovation, is a space for cultural education and outreach. Workshops are held here, events with young people are held, and content from the foundations' cultural offerings is further explored in creative formats.

A Space for new Impulses

With the Neubauer Hall, named after August Hermann Francke’s closest associate Georg Heinrich Neubauer (1666–1725), a spacious, light-filled event space has been created. It hosts events with partner organizations and regularly accommodates academic lectures, colloquia, and meetings.

In 1946, the Francke Foundations were expropriated and assigned to Martin Luther University. Between 1952 and 1953, this new building was constructed for the first Workers’ and Peasants’ Faculty in the GDR, a preparatory seminar for university studies.

As early as Francke’s schools, instruction in real-world subjects had been introduced as a teaching method. Between 1856 and 1857, the first purpose-built building for a secondary school in Halle was constructed according to the plans of Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Steudener (1803–1859).

In 1697 Francke founded the Latin grammar school to prepare pupils for university. In 1904–1906 the school was given its own building, constructed in the Wilhelminian style. Severely damaged during bombing in 1945, it was later fully converted to house East Germany’s first ‘Workers and Peasants Faculty’.

Built in 1913–1914, the technical high school responded to an increase in pupils and demands for higher standards in science subjects. Since the subsoil was unstable, the building was constructed on firmly anchored concrete piles rather than a standard foundation.

Reconstituted after the fall of the Wall, the Francke Foundations’ first new building (1993–1995) provided a modern building for the Kindertagesstätte August Hermann Francke.

In 1978–1979 a standard East German ‘Erfurt II’ prefabricated concrete-slab building was constructed to house the school with its gym. At the same time apartment blocks were built to the south east of the grounds.

The girls’ high school was given its own building in 1896, continuing the tradition of girls’ education started by Francke. The building was constructed in red brick, much favoured at that time, and was soon nicknamed the ‘Red School’.

The day care and after-school facilities for the neighbouring residential area were constructed in the same concrete-slab tower block style as the surrounding apartment blocks. In 2003–2004, the building was fully modernised and an extra storey was added.