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Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba in Cologne is a different kind of museum. Inspirational rather than art historical, its juxtapositions of old and new religious art are meant to stimulate thinking about how different periods have addressed sacred themes. For this “museum of reflection,” as the curators describe it—an institution from which all of today’s usual entertainment factors, including a café and gift shop, are excluded—the reclusive Swiss architect known for his contemplative spaces has given new spiritual overtones to an architectural palimpsest.

Photo © Roland Halbe

The Kolumba, founded in 1853 by the Society for Christian Art, maintains a collection of religious art that extends from a 1st-century portrait of the daughter-in-law of Emperor Tiberius to the present. In the words of curator Stefan Kraus, “The museum encompasses 2,000 years of architecture for 2,000 years of art.” The institution had suffered financial uncertainty until 1989, when it came under the jurisdiction of the Cologne Archdiocese. Within a decade, the new administration oversaw the competition for a new building to replace the 4,300-square-foot space it had occupied previously. Zumthor won with a design that uses the remaining walls and irregular polygon ground plan of the ruined Gothic church of St. Kolumba on the site. The building’s 17,222 square feet of exhibition space, costing $64.5 million, constitute almost the entire structure.