A zigzagging pathway guides you through the archaeological excavations between slim concrete columns pinning up the ceiling. Interior view. 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. This project emerged from the inside out, and from the place,” explained Zumthor at the museum’s opening. 3. … Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect, won the Pritzker Prize in 2009 and is known for his minimalist, pure aesthetic. 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. 2,602 Followers, 217 Following, 41 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from KOLUMBA Kunstmuseum (@kolumba_artmuseum) kolumba_artmuseum. KOLUMBA Museum Cologne. It stood until 1943, where the site was tragically demolished – along with the rest of the city – by the allied air strike. His best known projects are the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, the thermal bathes in Vals, Switzerland and the Kolumba in Cologne. Image 1 of 38 from gallery of Kolumba Museum / Peter Zumthor. Kolumba Kolumbastraße 4 D-50667 Köln tel +49 (0)221 9331930 fax +49 (0)221 93319333. But entering from the foyer into the main room of the museum’s lower level, everything falls into place.The walls are windowless apart from the perforations lining the top, casting filtered light into the double height room.

Kolumba Art Museum, Cologne, Germany Architect: Peter Zumthor Prepared by: M.Senthil 2. The highly distinctive narrow staircase pressed between two concrete walls. Apart from a series of holes puncturing the facades halfway up and some large, square windows, it appears to be a closed box of slender and neatly aligned light grey bricks.

Kolumba is the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne and next to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum the oldest museum in Cologne. Here, the exhibition rooms are subdued in color and scale with white concrete walls and polished floors. Above and below: Kolumba Art Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese, 2007 Cologne, Germany . 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. 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. Exterior view. Photo by Yuri Palmin 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. Even the handrail is designed by Zumthor.

As he said at the museum opening:Kolumba Museum. The Art Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese was to be a “living museum… A place that speaks to all the senses. The Kolumba Museum is the exception.Kolumba Museum. Photograph by Jose Fernando Vazquez Posts Tagged. Peter Zumthor belongs to a rare breed of architects. More about the project and more of Vazquez’s images after the break. www.kolumba.de. 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. 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. Photo by Marina López SalasSince then, the ruins were largely left untouched, with the exception of a small octogonal chapel built in 1949 by local architect Gottfried Böhm in rememberance of the devastating bombing.As you stand amidst the room with all layers of history exposed, protected by the outer walls that gently wraps everything together, there is a serene calmness and odd timelessness.Indeed it does. Photo by Jörn SchiemannThe building does not reveal a lot from the outside. A place as evocative as it is intellectually and physically stimulating.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. Follow. Photo by Jörn Schiemann  Kolumba Museum.