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 relocation of the
wall, Neustadt, was then quickly constructed. No longer cramped behind the 600-year-old
city wall, Cologne’s turn-of-the-century population of over 400,000 had room to continue
its process of growth and urbanization. In 1907–14 the defensive structures underwent
further alterations. The fortification numbered 182 units on the eve of World War I, and
almost all these were subsequently torn down per the Treaty of Versailles, putting an end
to Cologne’s military and architectural status as a”fortress city.” Konrad Adenauer,
Cologne’s lord mayor from 1917 to 1933, successfully convinced the Allies to allow a
handful of the fortresses to remain as historical documents.
As modern military technology changed the location and layout of the city, suburbs
dominated by factories began to crop up around the outskirts of the city. The population
continued to grow, helped along by a pattern of incorporating communities, extending the
geographic contours of the city eastward across the river. The industrialization and
commercialization of Cologne brought about construction projects that facilitated the
transportation of goods and people throughout the city. The construction of the Deutzer
Bridge (1911–13) united both sides of the Rhine, and the widening and merger of
existing alleys into the Gürzenichstrasse created a modern access road to the bridge on
the east side of the river.
The construction of major department stores such as Kaufhaus Tietz (designed by
Wilhelm Kreis, 1912–14) supported the trend toward urbanization. The Kaufhaus Tietz
building, situated between Hohe Strasse and Gürzenichstrasse, represented a new
architectural form with its symmetrical, imposing form and three glass-covered
courtyards. In 1933 the Tietz firm was one of the first victims of the National Socialists’
policy of “Aryanization.” The Jewish family Tietz lost their position as head of the
company, and the firm was renamed Westdeutsche Kaufhof AG.Allied bombing
damaged the interior and the foundation of the building. In 1953 the firm was renamed
once again, acquiring the simpler title Kaufhof Aktiengesellschaft, which it retains today.
Such monumental architecture reflected Rhineland architects’ belief that they could
affect the world with their constructions, and this conviction led to buildings that were
assigned a pedagogical and therapeutic role by their designers. In 1914 Bruno Taut
constructed one of the first Expressionist buildings with his polygonal Glaspalast (the
glass palace) for the Werk-bund Exhibition in Cologne, which took place on what are
now the trade-show grounds. Under the pavilion’s cupola, made up of diamond-shaped
glass bricks, a band of six short rhymes by Paul Scheerbart celebrated the potential for
architecture to improve society. Focusing primarily on glass and light, these included “Das bunte Glas /zers tört den Hass ”
(Colored glass/destroys hate) and “Das Glas bringt uns die neue Zeit/Backs teinkultur tut uns nu r leid” (Glass brings the new era to us/Brick culture
only pains us). The building, which has not survived, and the exhibition firmly
established Cologne as a major figure on the international and national architecture
stages.
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 524
Under Konrad Adenauer the city saw a number of new designs in the
interwar period, from Rhine Romantic to international modern, but all
with a decidedly German reference. Although the war had suffocated an
explicitly Expressionist architectural movement, the prewar Utopian
vision of beauty, light, and glass continued to influence construction plans,
particularly with reference to the emerging social interest in hygiene and
sports and the growing population. Before the war Cologne’s population
numbered almost 600,000 inhabitants. By the mid-1920s this number rose
to over 700,000. With the elimination of the fortress structures, city
planners were free to push Cologne’s
Maria Konigein, Cologne-Marienburg,
Germany, designed by Dominikus
Böhm (1954)
borders out further again, onto land that had once been reserved for defense purposes.
The need for increased work and recreation spaces, combined with Expressionist
influences and interwar local patriotism, brought about an explosion of new constructions
in all sectors.
Inspired by the parks in the city of Düsseldorf, Adenauer created the greenbelts or
rings encircling Cologne (1921–24). These areas consisted of a seven-kilometer-long
inner ring and a 30-kilometer-long outer green ring that followed the fortification lines
and incorporated the remaining forts in their landscape. Designed in part by the Hamburg
architect and city planner Fritz Schumacher, the belts were part of the designs for
Cologne that envisioned a unity of living, working, relaxation, and transportation. This
connection between mind and body, accompanied an increased enthusiasm for sports as
well, was symbolized by the stadium and swimming facility constructed by Adolf Abel in
1926, city planner from 1925 to 1930. Two monumental, matching buildings flanked the
sport center’s entrance, flat-roofed, with straight, imposing lines and massive brick
pillars.
A further remnant of Fortress Cologne found a use for the construction of the Bastei
restaurant (1923–24) by Wilhelm Riphahn, reconstructed by him in 1958 after it had been
badly burned during World War II. Built on an abandoned structure of the fortress wall,
the defensive tower houses three administrative and storage levels, and the kitchen is in a
corner of the top floor, overlooking the street. The dining area projects over the river, a
glass-paneled half circle like a Ferris wheel turned on its side and framed with steel
struts, topped with a star-shaped flat roof and encircled by a terrace. The Expressionist
reference to glass and jagged forms is unmistakable, but the Bastei also showed elements
of an emerging functionalism, such as using glass to increase the view of the river. This
peculiar interwar combination of Expressionism, functionalism, and local patriotism can
also be seen in Riphahn and Caspar Maria Grod’s Kölnsiche Zeitung, a newspaper
building shaped like a ship’s bow that alludes to the Rhine.
Ideas about light and green spaces extended to the new residential areas, and many of
these constructions are exemplary of Cologne’s Neues Bauen (New Building) movement.
Riphahn and Grod’s Blauer Hof estate (1926–28) in the Buchforst district, unusual for its
block structure, provided residents with light, air, trees, and green courtyards. The
architects designed the apartments of the neighboring estate, Weisse Stadt, at a slant to
provide optimum lighting; its row-by-row layout of units became quite popular for
housing. Their residential area Zoll-stock Siedling (1927–29) comprised apartments
designed to reflect the shared economic and social status of the middle-class civil
servants and private-sector residents. Each unit included a separate kitchenette instead of
the combined kitchen and living area typical for the region, thereby demonstrating the
residents’ higher social status. The Melanchthon church (1929–30) there, designed by
Theodor Merrill, intentionally provided Zollstock with a social center. The church
sustained damage during the war and has been restored with some alterations.
Commercial buildings reemerged in the interwar period as important constructions.
Jacob Koerfer’s L-shaped Hansa-Hochhaus (1924–25), comprising a long, seven-story
unit and a 17-story tower, presented a trend toward horizontal forms. Nevertheless, at
more than 213 feet, it was briefly the tallest building in Europe. With its alternating rows
of glass and limestone, the Dischhaus (1928–30), designed by Bruno Paul, represented a
clearer modern emphasis on smooth, vertical, flowing lines. Destroyed in World War II,
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 526
it has been rebuilt according to the original plans. The completion of the autobahn
between Cologne and Bonn in 1932 offered infrastructural transportation support to these
commercial projects.
The National Socialists’ seizure of power in 1933 brought about a cleansing of the
Martinsviertel quarter, a project actually developed under Adenauer to combat the
poverty and crime rampant in that part of the city. The Nazis chased “undesirables” out of
the area and expropriated great numbers of buildings from Jews. Architects fused old and
new buildings together, creating a changed topography that evoked an idealistic image of
a German medieval inner city. Nazi planners envisioned the inner city as a visual
reference to the party’s claims of a German heritage, whereas the surrounding modern
city, with its monumental parade alleys, contributed to a sense of historical evolution.
World War II bombing almost entirely destroyed Cologne. The historic inner city lost
90 percent of its buildings, and urban areas saw irreparable damage to 70 percent of
residences. The cathedral, although still standing, was badly damaged, as were many
Romanesque churches. Only 40,000 people of the prewar 800,000 population continued
to live in Cologne. The “Adolf Hitler Mountain,” as locals referred to the overwhelming
pile of rubble left by the destruction in the center of the city, disappeared only slowly
over the years until 1955. Planners ripped down many 19th-century buildings in the
postwar years, electing to reconstruct a number of the 1930s buildings in the massive
neoclassical style of Nazism.
The postwar years focused on reclaiming Cologne’s architectural past. In 1948
residents celebrated the 700th anniversary of the cathedral. In 1956 repairs to the building
had been completed, allowing visitors once again full access to the city’s icon.
Dominikus Böhm and his son Gottfried continued the elder’s interwar program of
constructing new churches, using new materials such as concrete and circular styles that
reflected changes in the function of the church as a center of community life. Dominikus
Böhm had built the tower of his St. Engelbert Church (1930) standing apart from the
main building, keeping the form of the main building as reflective of its purpose to unify
the congregation. St. Maria Königin (1952–54), also designed by Dominikus Böhm, uses
a south-facing picture window as the primary source of light, and its baptistery is entirely
glass. Gottfried Böhm constructed the tower in 1960. The combination of round forms
and straight lines in brick and concrete used in Dominikus Böhm’s Christi Auferstehung
Church (1968) provides an example of the plasticity typical of the Brutalism movement,
evident as well in the architect Oswald Matthias Ungers’s own private home and office
(1958–59). The library annex in 1989 used almost exclusively cubes and squares and
acquired an explicit humanistic, pedagogical function.
The architectural competition for the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in 1978 demonstrated
the importance that discussions surrounding architectural projects have had in Cologne.
Although neither James Stirling’s Postmodern design for the museum nor Ungers’s plan,
which called for the museum building itself to open up new spaces in the city, was
realized, both contributed to a new era of architecture in Cologne and Germany. The
winning plan, by Peter Busman and Godfrid Haberer (1980–86), a reinforced-concrete
structure with overhanging red brick walls, housed the Wallraf-Richartz, the Ludwig
Museum, and the Philharmonic. Ungers later won a competition for the new Wallraf-
Richartz Museum, which once again reflected his preference for cube forms. The
museum opened for exhibits in January 2001 to critical acclaim for the architectural
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design as well as the display of the museum’s holdings, successfully helping Cologne in
its struggle to edge out Berlin as Germany’s leading cultural city.
The end of the 20th century demonstrated the “cathedral city’s” commitment to
preserving its cultural heritage while looking forward architecturally. The ruins left by
the war of the Church of St. Kolumba will be incorporated into a new building for the
relocated diocesan museum of Cologne, a competition won by Peter Zumthor in 1997.
The following year marked the 750th anniversary of the cathedral and a new series of
reconstructions for that building. As restorers voice concern over the damage effected by
pollution to the flying buttresses, the cathedral remains a looming reminder of the
evolving role of the city’s artistic and commercial past in the construction of its built
landscape.
