🏛️ Another Modernity | MAKK Museum in Cologne

The Museum of Applied Arts in Cologne, known as MAKK, is the first newly built museum structure in post-war Germany (1953-1957), connected to a medieval Franciscan church, initially built as the Wallraf Richartz Museum. The simple red brick facade and parallel glass gabled roofs give it the appearance of a factory. Its layout retains the cloister style of the old monastery on the original site, with some historical corridors incorporated into the new building. In contrast to the enclosed entrance space, there is an open hall and a glass curtain wall facing the church, with a skylight design that also includes a clever nod to the Church of St. Anna in Düren. In Rudolf Schwarz's vision, the museum was not a multifunctional exhibition hall but a place for contemplation and scrutiny: "A building full of sunlight...a modest building for contemporary people who live in today's world, conversing with the relics of the past, becoming part of a new contemporary landscape under the same daylight..." #ArchitecturalDesign #Aesthetics #ExhibitionVisit #Cologne