With the Rhine River winding slowly through the city and its towering cathedral spires, Cologne has long provided the German imagination with rich images of artistic and national Romanticism. Its idyllic landscape and key location on a major waterway have supported the city’s evolution as an important commercial and industrial center. The Entries A–F 523 history of Cologne’s architectural developments in the 20th century clearly joins the two strands of artistic enchantment and dynamic economy. The city’s built landscape served a distinct defensive function at the close of the 19th century. Developments in military technology had brought about an increased target range of weapons, and Cologne’s medieval city wall with its buffer zone leading up to fortification structures was insufficient to protect Cologne from enemy fire. In 1881 the Prussian government moved the inner medieval fortress ring outward, and the approximately one-square-mile, crescent-shaped area created by the relocatio...