The Gründerzeit (German, literally: the Founder's Epoch) denotes the first decades after the foundation in 1871 of the Prussia-led German Empire. As a design style it was succeeded by the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) (1895–1914).

In the mindset of the Germans, the epoch is distinguished by Kaiser Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismarck, but it didn't end with them but continued well into the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was the Golden Age of Germany, when the disasters of the Thirty Years’ War and the Napoleonic Wars were remedied, German scientists were developing new technologies faster than anyone else, German industrialists were developing new methods and products that no other nation could compete with, and German merchants were once again taking over market after market around the world. This was the time when particularly the German middle class rapidly increased their standard of living, buying modern furniture and kitchen fitting and household machines, of a standard that wasn’t to be outshone for generations.

The development of the economy and the growing industries triggered the creation of new kinds of buildings. Big industrial buildings and gasometers were built. The function of these buildings was more important than their integration into the cities. The houses in the residential areas were built in disregard of the rules of the art of architecture that had existed for hundreds of years. Harmony and the balancing of opposites were no longer important to the architecture of this time. The buildings included parts of almost every epoch that had existed before.  This way buildings were erected that showed the financial and economically improved status of their owners. 

How this style should be interpreted has long been not clear. Some state that these buildings are the perfect combination of all great architectures, some say they are just the blind imitation of these. Yet there is no doubt that Gründerzeit architecture has been widely accepted now as a style of its own.