Layers of history at show. Follow. As he said at the museum opening:Kolumba Museum. Situated in Cologne, Germany, a city that was almost completely destroyed in World War II, the museum  houses the Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s collection of art which spans more than a thousand years. Following the pathway will lead you to a small ceilingless atrium where Richard Serra’s sculpture The Drowned and the Saved (Die Verschwundenen und Gerettete) is placed on top of a crypt containing mortal remains found during the excavations.

Photo by Yuri PalminKolumba Museum. Posts Tagged. Photo by Yuri Palmin His best known projects are the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, the thermal bathes in Vals, Switzerland and the Kolumba in Cologne. 41 posts; 2,602 followers; 217 following; KOLUMBA Kunstmuseum A triad of place, collection, and architecture, it allows the visitor to experience two millennia of western culture in a single building.

Window detail. Here, the exhibition rooms are subdued in color and scale with white concrete walls and polished floors. Open courtyard with Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn’s Reclining Figure (Große Liegende). Kolumba is the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne and next to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum the oldest museum in Cologne. Icons and religious statues are standing shoulder to shoulder with contemporary art installations – and as if this is not confusing in itself, the visitors are left completely to their own devices, as there is no accompanying text to be found.This must have posed a considerable challenge to the museum’s curators, but they have skillfully managed to draw thematic lines throughout the exhibit – and in doing so, they offer new perspectives on the way we are accustomed to looking at art, it challenges the sometimes narrow scope of our frame of reference.Zumthor, an outspoken opposer of the so-called Bilbao effect, the notion that a museum should be a marketing instrument to brand either the city or the architect (or both), chose to work on this project because of its apparent refusal to adhere to the trends of today’s museum world. Exhibition space. A place as evocative as it is intellectually and physically stimulating.Kolumba Museum.

”They believe in the inner values of art, its ability to make us think and feel, its spiritual values. Zumthor, consistently mindful of the use of the materials, and specifically their construction details, has used grey brick to unite the destroyed fragments of the site. The Church of St. Columba (Sankt Kolumba), which was home to Cologne’s largest parish in the Middle Ages, was destroyed in the Second World War; the site of the former church now houses the Kolumba Museum. Even the handrail is designed by Zumthor. Photo by Jörn SchiemannThe building does not reveal a lot from the outside. www.kolumba.de. Special thanks to our reader Jose Fernando Vazquez from Urbana Arquitectura (view his work previously featured on AD) who has shared these images of Zumthor’s amazing Kolumba Museum with us.

The Kolumba Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne takes its unusual name from a late Gothic period church. Interior view.

The highly distinctive narrow staircase pressed between two concrete walls. A place that speaks to all the senses. In a display of mastery and sensitivity, the architect manages to fuse the ruins of a destroyed Catholic church, with modern, sober and minimalist architecture, and highly sensitive to the theme of the works it houses: religious art. Above and below: Kolumba Art Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese, 2007 Cologne, Germany . Photo by Yuri PalminBack at the foyer, a narrow staircase takes you upstairs to the art exhibit, where the collection of the Archdiocese, who commissioned the museum, is at show. 3. Universally revered for his attention to detail, he religiously believes – like the old bauhaus masters that schooled him – in the architect as a craftsman. This project emerged from the inside out, and from the place,” explained Zumthor at the museum’s opening. Photo by Marina López SalasKolumba Museum. Built on the ruins of the Gothic Church of St. Columba in the old center of Cologne, not far from the city’s spectacular cathedral, revered Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum stands as an equally uplifting and melancholic testament to the glorious and the bleak chapters of the city’s past. The Art Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese was to be a “living museum… Kolumba Kolumbastraße 4 D-50667 Köln tel +49 (0)221 9331930 fax +49 (0)221 93319333.

In medieval times, when the Saint Kolumba parish was Cologne’s largest and most dominant the splendid Kolumba Church was built to properly demonstrate the power of the parish. You feel the desire shared between client and architect to create something unique, something more than the museum itself. Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect, won the Pritzker Prize in 2009 and is known for his minimalist, pure aesthetic. It is a fitting end to the narrative of the site and its past, almost like a punctuation mark.Kolumba Museum. The only abruption comes in the form of the large window sections that beautifully frames selected views of the city.Here it becomes very clear – if there was at a point any doubt – that Kolumba is no ordinary museum. As with Zumthor himself, the location of most of his works, are notoriously recluse. The Kolumba Museum is the exception.Kolumba Museum. Kolumba Art Museum, Cologne, Germany Architect: Peter Zumthor Prepared by: M.Senthil 2.

Zumthor’s design delicately rises from the ruins of a late-Gothic church, respecting the site’s history and preserving its essence. 2,602 Followers, 217 Following, 41 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from KOLUMBA Kunstmuseum (@kolumba_artmuseum) kolumba_artmuseum.