Max Koch

Jewish Museum and Archaeological Museum at the city hall square

Time-Space Mediator

Archaeological excavations of more than 2000 years of the urban history are located underneath the town hall square of cologne. This site is of outstanding relevance concerning the history of the city and the region, as well as of Germany and Europe. The Praetorium, the administrative centre of the roman governor and the oldest Jewish district were situated at this place.

These excavations are supposed to be made accessible to the public. Above the archaeological museum there is going to be designed a Jewish museum, which is meant to be a meeting- and exhibition place in terms of the Jewish life and Jewish culture.

The proposed concept faces the problem in dealing with ruins of historical importance and their mediation in the context of today´s city and history as well as the creation of a new Jewish museum by a pending double-sided sculpture, a reconstructive impression of the urban area of the former Jewish quarter of the fourteenth century.

The intention was to trace formerly existing urban spaces and offer the possibility to experience them without trying to build a replica. The visitor experiences this room from underneath on the level of the archaeological excavations that appear in the shape of a negativ mould of the former urban-shape. On the exhibition-level of the Jewish museum the visitor is able to experience the reconstructed street as a defined space.

The intention of the concept was not the creation of something new but the exposure and reco¬¬¬¬¬¬nstruction of the past. By this means a construction emerges that communicates the history of the city and simultaneously copes with today´s context of the city. All recommended interventions serve the ability of experience the built environment. The double-sided sculpture programmatically separates the archaeological area from the Jewish museum and connects the content of both.

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