Building on the past

Photos of the exterior (left and center) and interior (right) of the Kunstmuseum für das Erzbistum in Cologne, Germany (photos: Helen Binet)

It appears to be a trend among museum architects to leave existing structures untouched while carefully adding new layers. There are few places where a history stretching back thousands of years is more legible than the site of the Gothic St. Kolumba church, destroyed in WWII, in the centre of Cologne. Archaeologists started excavating the area of rubble in the 1970s. Apart from the church ruins dating from around 1500 and the chapel of the “Madonna in the Ruins” which was built inside them by Gottfried Böhm in the 1950s, they have unearthed layers from the Late Medieval, Caroligian, Frankian and Roman periods. Now a contemporary layer is being added. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has built the new Art museum of the archbishopric of Cologne over the archaeological site, the Gothic ruins and Böhm’s chapel.

This report originally appeared in the Frankfurter Rundschau on September 18, 2007.

In Madrid, the architectural duo Herzog and De Meuron are also adding new layers to an existing structure that will house a large cultural center, the so-called Caixa Forum. The architects, known for their award-winning Tate Modern design, are currently renovating a 21,500-square-foot disused coal-burning electrical station built in 1900. The design enables a quadrupling of the space by constructing two underground floors and topping the original building’s double-peaked warehouse structure with a large-scale austere addition. The new superstructure will be sheathed in shimmering, tinted iron, to contrast with the existing red brick facade.

New iron roof of the Caixa Forum in Madrid

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This entry was written by Michiel van Iersel, posted on september 30, 2007 at 12:35 pm, filed under Archaeology, Architecture, Europe, Heritage, Museum and tagged archaeological site, Art museum, Cologne, Germany, Gottfried Böhm, Helen Binet, Madrid, Peter Zumthor. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.