This is a story about a museum that holds 350,000 objects telling stories about the history of Cologne. It’s also the story of a museum that only has room to display about 700 of them in its new but temporary home, the seventh or eighth in its 150-year history.
That’s a tough spot for a museum, and despite doing its best in a number of inventive ways, the Cologne City Museum doesn’t quite succeed with either a consistent historical narrative or a clear point of view. It’s a shame, because some of the questions it asks and some of its exhibits are quite important.
Because it has so little space, the museum has had to abandon the idea so many local history museums use, of dividing the space into sections for each century or era; instead, it has tried to use an ’emotional understanding’ approach, grouped by a series of key questions, addressed to Cologne’s residents, such as “What do we believe?” “What makes us angry?” “What do we love?” or “What makes us afraid?”
These questions allow the museum to deploy objects from across eras in response to the questions, and to how Cologners have responded. The result is some fascinating connections, interesting objects, and a lack of either a mental or explicit timeline to connect events and objects from one area to another. Each does, however, give some background details.
There’s hope for the future: a new building for the museum is under construction as part of a complex with several other museums, and is scheduled for completion in 2028; that will be the end of a long odyssey that has seen the museum grow from rooms inside another into a re-used city gatehouse, several armory and military buildings, World War II in storage, and until 2017, a former armory that suffered major damage.
During that time, the museum was also at the center of repeated tug-of-war disputes—general museum, or city history? City history or all of Rhineland? All of history or only since 800? In the 1930s, the museum became largely a Nazi propaganda show, although its long-time director was the only Cologne museum head who never joined the Nazi party.
For now, though, and for the past two years, the museum has occupied a former fashion department store with Art Deco features despite dating only to the 1980s. The store’s design, with large open spaces around a lobby and atrium are a good fit for the museum, despite the small size.
Cologne grew slowly out from its Roman origins; by 1571, portrayed in the 1913 model above, it had 40,000 residents and was the largest city north of the Alps. The document above is from 1396. In it, the few families that had seized power from the bishop a century or so earlier, ceded control to 22 guilds and associations of the city—Cologne’s first constitution.
The bilingual street signs were made when Cologne fell under French rule in 1794 until the fall of Napoleon; in 1848 it was a center of the unsuccessful liberal revolution in Germany.
In the 20th century, Cologne was still at the center of the world stage. Konrad Adenauer, Germany’s postwar chancellor, was Mayor of Cologne until fired by the Nazis in 1933. When Hitler’s troops re-militarized the Rhineland in 1936, Cologne was the scene of their celebration.
There’s a section devoted to the river and its bridges—and the effects of occasional floods; the one below was in 1993. Cologne got its first bridge around 315 CE; its most famous one is the lattice-like Hohenzollern railroad bridge near the Cathedral.
And, of course, there’s a selection of Made-in-Cologne products, some more obvious than others. Chocolate, of course, and the world’s first vending machine for it and an assortment in a cathedral-shaped carrier.
But also bicycles and motorbikes, as well as one of the largest automobile factories, Ford’s main works in Germany, scene of a major strike in the 1970s. It’s also the home town of RIchard MOrszeck WAren, maker of the distinctive high-end Rimowa suitcases.
And, of course, the product that comes from what the company calls ‘the most famous house number in the world,’ a product that takes its name from the city itself. Despite their claim to being the first ‘Eau de Cologne’ in 1794, there’s a local competitor that’s been in business since 1709.
