The characters of the soap were bar and shop owners, housewives, businessmen, craftsmen, doctors, students and teachers.

According to Günter Struve, program director of Das Erste between 1992 and 2008: “Marienhof is familiar without being too fuddy-duddy, and close to everyday life without being boring - every day more than three million, mostly young, viewers are guests in the Cologne district.

The series envisaged three narrative strands interwoven like a braid based on the Anglo-Saxon model, i. H. Three independent stories should be told per episode, which nonetheless have points of contact.

The working group initially developed three suggestions for locations: the clover leaf, the department store and the hospital in the middle of the city.

After almost all editors had voted for a further development of the department store material, extensive research was carried out on cross-country productions in other European countries.

In July, another revised paper for the series was presented with explanations of the dramaturgical concept and the planned manuscript production, in which the department store material was expanded and rounded off.