Wilhelm Marx House, Commercial high-rise building in Stadtmitte, Düsseldorf, Germany

The Wilhelm Marx House is a commercial building in Düsseldorf with 13 floors and reaches 57 meters high. The structure shows features of modern 1920s architecture with clean lines and functional design.

Construction of the Wilhelm-Marx-Haus began in May 1922 on the Alleeplatz, and the building was occupied in summer 1924. It was designed by Wilhelm Kreis, who won the 1921 competition with a plan of two intersecting rectangles. At 57 metres and twelve upper floors, it was among Germany's earliest high-rises and, until Cologne's Hansahochhaus opened in 1925, contemporary press called it Europe's tallest reinforced-concrete building.

Inside, you'll find artworks like sculptures by Carl Moritz Schreiner that shape the building's character. Today the JuTA theatre uses the spaces for performances, bringing cultural activity to the location.

The building stands at the southern end of the Allee, where the Altstadt, Carlstadt and banking district meet, above the Heinrich-Heine-Allee U-Bahn station. The subway runs directly beneath it, so the structure rests on a bored pile wall of over 500 concrete pillars. A shared underground car park with the neighbouring Carsch-Haus lies below.

The entrance hall keeps the only surviving original fixture: a tiger sculpture by Carl Moritz Schreiner, crouched on the stair balustrade. Almost everything else was lost when air raids damaged the upper floors in June 1943. The building rests partly on an old fortress wall and moat, which caused water to break in during construction in 1922.