Museum für Angewandte Kunst (Cologne)

The Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln (German for "Museum of Applied Art", abbreviated MAKK) is a decorative arts museum in Cologne, Germany. The collections include jewellery, porcelain, furniture, weaponry and architectural exhibits. Until 1987 it was called the Kunstgewerbemuseum ("Decorative Art Museum").[1]

Aerial view of the museum - including the church.

History
Statues of Johann Heinrich Richartz and Ferdinand Franz Wallraf in front of the museum (photomontage).

The city of Cologne decided to found an applied art museum in 1888. The core of the exhibition originally came from the collections of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748–1824) and Matthias Joseph de Noël (1782–1849), and the exhibition was soon expanded through endowments. The museum's original location was a Neo-Gothic building on the Hansaring, built in 1900, but this was destroyed by bombs in 1943.[1][2]

Since 1989 the museum has had a permanent home in the former building of the Wallraf-Richartz and Ludwig Museums at An-der-Rechtschule, built by Rudolf Schwarz and Josef Bernhard between 1953–57.[1][2]

Building

The plain, red-brick Schwarz-Bernhard building stands on the site of a former Conventual monastery, whose shape is still traced by the ground plan and the square inner courtyard. The late-Gothic Minoritenkirche on the south side still survives. The inner courtyard wall on the north side has been almost entirely glazed, acting as a "shop window" for the museum. A low, modest antechamber leads into the museum's very large entrance hall and central staircase.

Collections

The museum has a large collection (over 100,000 items)[3] of European applied art from the 10th century to the present. This is arranged chronologically by era, and includes furniture, decorative carpets, small sculptures, dining utensils, luxury items, and decorative objects. For the sake of preservation, the textile collection is mostly displayed only in short-term special exhibitions.[3]

De Stijl and Bauhaus at the MAKK

The museum is particularly known for its collection of modern design. An exhibition of 20th century design, created by the Vitra Design Museum of Weil am Rhein in 2008, is spread across two floors of one of the wings. It features a thematic and chronological presentation of furniture, lamps, telephones, televisions, cameras, radios and household items, by designers including Ray Eames, Dieter Rams, Frank Lloyd Wright, Philippe Starck, Ettore Sottsass, and Joe Colombo. These are exhibited alongside visual artworks by artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Victor Vasarely, Jesús Rafael Soto, Piet Mondrian and Günther Uecker, in order to show the historical relationships between art and design.[4][5]

Some individual exhibits include:

The museum also hosts special temporary exhibitions.

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See also

Notes
  1. "Geschichte Archived 2010-08-30 at the Wayback Machine", Museum für Angewandte Kunst, October 12, 2007. Retrieved October 16, 2010. (in German)
  2. "Angewandte Kunst vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart Archived 2010-08-30 at the Wayback Machine", Museum für Angewandte Kunst, October 12, 2007. Retrieved October 16, 2010. (in German)
  3. Museum für Angewandte Kunst", Köln für Insider (2008). Retrieved October 15, 2010. (in German)
  4. "Die Neupräsentation der Designsammlung Archived 2010-08-30 at the Wayback Machine", Museum für Angewandte Kunst, October 12, 2007. Retrieved October 16, 2010. (in German)
  5. "Museum für Angewandte Kunst Koln Opens New Design Department" ArtDaily, October 31, 2008. Retrieved October 16, 2010. (in English)
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