25^th July.  I arrived outside Köln before noon, the fat cigar-like twin towers of the cathedral were the first thing I saw from the autobahn and they still exert the same magnetic attraction for the modern pilgrim as they did for the medieval and nineteenth century gentlemen travellers.  And so, I made for the towers, circled the cathedral and crossed the river twice before I found Kolumba, “Köln’s most arrogant art gallery.”  I have read that it is both “beyond time” and conversely that it is like a ‘modern factory built from expensive bricks, abusing the prone church beneath it.’  If I had to agree with either it would certainly be the first.  It has the feel and look of something quite alien and unexpected although I intuit it might have come from the east.  Perhaps further east than Christianity even, like the three magi, floating into the city, mirage-like, from the desert.  This becomes clearer, more explicit in the garden courtyard where palms sit in sandy coloured gravel contained within stratified concrete walls reminiscent of adobe.

On the ground floor are a sequence of entrance spaces, toilets and the new hall over the excavations and old church.  There is much made of variations between light and dark, volume and surface.  A great pair of leather curtains, which are traditional in the area if not on this scale, purvey a peculiar scent and mark entrance into the excavation hall.  They not only exclude light from the neighbouring hall, which opens onto the courtyard garden, but also reduce air exchange as the preservation of the artefacts upstairs require a special atmosphere.  The punctured brickwork of the hall famously admits dappled sunlight but sounds from the street outside also bumble through.  Fortunately both lend to the completive atmosphere.  A wooden walk-way zigzags through the space deliberately.  The first turn points directly at a crucifix, a broken survivor of the blast which nearly levelled the church of St. Kolumba more than fifty years ago.  The remainder weaves a course around the chapel of “Madonna in the Ruins” and bridge the excavations which are dramatic, deep and sharply spot lit by the pendant lamps that hang from far above.  At the far end is the destination, brilliantly bright after the excavation hall, a former sacristy now open to the sky in which Richard Serra’s massive sculpture, ‘The Drowned and the Saved’ (1992) stands.  This intervention predates Zumthor’s new building and it is quietly left to its own devices, only an immaculately outfitted control terminal stands attentively in the corner. The sculpture itself is formed by two identical steel angles that meet imperfectly in the centre of their span.  Each is naturally imbalanced but they support each other, their self weights opposing but they have already started to slip – another and the whole collapse and both will drown.

After returning to the entrance hall, you leave this behind, turning a series of right angle bends you face a monumental staircase, a leitmotiv with Zumthor now.  Like an alpine path it is unrelenting and long, even for someone young, as I found.  It is narrow and there is only one banister, which is of course finished immaculately.  The ceiling is extremely high here; it matches the height of the room above.  As one emerges, almost certainly panting but also feeling small and self-contained a seat is thoughtfully provided.  In symphony, two works address compassionately the realities of solitude and sentience.  The reduced architecture and absence of views out prime you for a series of very hard hitting works one particularly harrowing and all asking spiritual and humanitarian questions if not always Christian.  The second floor, after another stair, offers something of a release.  A huge window greats you this time and there are several more, the space over the excavation hall is open and a series of rooms possess an incredible dimension of height. Three of these are coupled with slightly raised anti-rooms but the first, a reading room, is very different.  Here the wooden panelled walls offer the relief of texture.  The suite of bespoke leather arm chair’s inscrutable style triggers some form of déjà vu and the space becomes like a living memory.  I imagined I was in the drawing room of a zeppelin, flying high above the city but it was not much of a leap.  As light streams through a gigantic window and is gently diffused by trailing silk curtains, it is hard to think of a reason to leave.

But everything that goes up must come down and I left rather exhausted, on edge even, and rather surprised by the range of emotions and questions the building, artwork and curation had brought forth in me.  Perhaps I should not have been so surprised – they are Catholics after all.

On route I will sought out and wrote about my three most compelling passions; Landscape, Art and Architecture.  From the castles, towns and rivers that so moved J.W.M. Turner, to the works of Zumthor, Piano,  Ando and OMA.

This series of Articles was first written for the RIBA journal Behind the Scenes Section.