Kölnisches Stadtmuseum

Within Cologne’s urban cultural framework, the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum fulfills the task of preserving and communicating the city’s history spanning twelve centuries. Since March 2024 the museum has temporarily been housed in the former Franz Sauer department store in Cologne city centre; the building is located between the Minoritenkirche, Museum Kolumba and the Breiten Straße.

The museum was founded at the end of the 19th century; since then its locations and collection structures have changed several times. Parts of the holdings were transferred in the 1920s to an institution on the right bank of the Rhine and consolidated there, before the presentation was politically instrumentalized in the 1930s under a new name. During the Second World War large parts of the collection were evacuated and thus preserved. After the war the museum returned to the historic Zeughaus and reopened there in 1958. Long-term space and building-fabric problems led to the closure of the permanent exhibition in 2017; the Franz Sauer department store has served since then as an interim location and was reopened in March 2024.

The collection comprises around 350,000 objects from the Middle Ages to the present: seals, charters, paintings, prints, militaria, coins, textiles, furniture and everyday objects, as well as a Judaica collection. At the same time it documents contemporary events and everyday culture through concrete testimonies, ranging from religious objects and works of art to finds from more recent political and social events. In the new exhibition concept only a few hundred objects are displayed; these are arranged across periods in eight thematic “question rooms” that place emotions and identity at the centre as the primary interpretive framework. A condensed “room of city history” conveys core data and the layers of Cologne’s development through distinctive objects such as the medieval city seal, a Verbundbrief and the historic city model.

Accessibility and inclusion are integral to the design: bilingual texts, tactile guidance systems, Braille labels, high-contrast texts, tactile exhibits and technical aids for people with hearing and visual impairments are widely provided. In addition, a publicly accessible reference library with around 50,000 media items on the history of Cologne is available; guided tours are offered in several languages.