Kolumba - Cologne, Germany 

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St. Kolumba was a church founded in 1853 by the Society for Christian Art, and contains a variety of art dating back to as far as the 1st century all the way up to the modern day.[2] It was originally a central attraction for the biggest church community in Cologne during the Middle Ages.[1] 

The originally church was bombed during the Second World War, but in an area where all had been flattened by bombings, a statue of Mary still stood in the ruins of the old church. This was seen as so miraculous, that a new chapel had to be built on the site. This was designed by Gottfried Böhm and still stands on the site to this day.[2] 

In 1973, an important archaeological site was discovered under the old church, containing Roman, Gothic and Medieval remains.[2] It was clear that this was an area of historic importance and that it would need to be housed. 

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Peter Zumthor, a Swiss architect, designed the outer leaf of the building. Zumthor is known for his creation of sensory stimulation within his buildings. He is commended for his eloquent use of light and shadow to create and atmosphere and cause the visitor to feel a certain way as they traverse the area in which he has designed. A lot of the time, it could be said that his designs are too dark in some places, with not a lot of natural light being allowed into the space. This can be seen with a lot of his designs, including the thermal baths in Vals, Switzerland, the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel in Eifel, Germany and Kolumba in Cologne Germany, which I will talk about in detail here. Opened in 2007, the build covers 17,222 square feet of exhibition space and cost $64.5 million to construct.[2] And it has a special way of incorporating natural light into the spaces within the museum. 

The masonry of the building is shifted to create gaps in it to let a certain amount of natural light into the space. The reason for this is to create a similar atmosphere to that of the original Cathedral. It was a Gothic cathedral, so getting light into the space was a very important aspect of the design, in the same way as it was an important factor in Peter Zumthor’s design. When asked about the lighting in the museum, Zumthor said, “The objective of the new building was not that of the light-flooded museum but - on the contrary, Kolumba is a museum full of light and shadow; the change unfolds during the day and with the seasons and also at twilight.”[1] So, it is clear that Zumthor set out, with this design, to use the natural lighting of the space to create an atmosphere within the space. There are also large windows at the top of the very high walls, and although I could not find any information on the purpose or reason for these, I would assume that they have a similar connection to the Cathedral theme, and are signifying the heavenly light of God from above, that many high windows in churches and Cathedrals do. 

Zumthor makes an effort in this design to incorporate and exhibit all the history of this site within his design. With all the history of the site incapsulated in the 60cm thick stone outer leaf.[1] 

The climate of Cologne is humid and rainy, with the weather being affected by the Atlantic Ocean. The average temperature is very similar to that of Dublin, ranging from 2.5 degrees Celsius in January to 19 degrees Celsius in July. Cologne is also a quite windy city. However, the important statistic in terms of this project, is hours of sunlight, which Cologne does not get a lot of. As you can see from the table below, the most sunlight that Cologne gets per day averages at 7 hours in July.[3] 

And it is clear to see that the lack of sunlight in the area effects the museum, as it is only open for five hours a day, from midday to five PM, because although the space does have artificial lighting, it is not enough to support staying open when it begins to get dark and the already low light levels within the building begin to drop even more, or before the sun has risen to its peak height. 

Overall, this could be classes as a good use of daylight in architecture in the ways that it was trying to be. However, in the grander scheme of things, I would not call this successful daylight architecture. Although when the light level is sufficient, the experience within the space can be enchanting and beautiful, these light levels are not common where the museum was built, this seems like a massive oversight to me. It would be reasonable to say that a project like this would have been more of a success closer to the equator, as it would have more sunlight and a lot of circulation due to there being no glass in the gaps in walls. 

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Environmentally, the building is very modern, it uses thermal controlled surfaces to ensure the rooms are the ideal temperature, the materials it is built with have a relatively high scorption rate which means that they can hold excess humidity, which is helpful when dealing with a high capacity of people.[5] To quote the museums website, the materials used in the project were, “light gray brick walls (Kolumba stones) and clay plaster, flooring made of Jura limestone, terrazzo, and mortar, ceilings made of a poured mortar shell, window frames, doors, casings and fittings of steel, wall paneling and furniture of wood, textiles and leather, curtains of leather and silk.“[4] It is clear to see that with such inclusions as limestone and local stones, that the Carbon footprint of the materials was taken into consideration in this project. However, sunlight has not been used in a secondary context in this build, no solar panels have been added to the roof and the energy of the sun is not used for internal heating. 

So, in summary, what the architect tried to do with sunlight, he did well, the creation of atmosphere was exactly what Zumthor was aiming for. But to say that sunlight has been incorporated excellently into its architecture would be a slight over exaggeration in my opinion. With no solar panels, and in a climate that cannot support continuous natural lighting, this project fails to excite, and put itself at the forefront of the use of natural daylight in architecture.  

References:

[1] Filter made of stone. Daylight and Architecture. 2008;(07):7.     

[2] Carrington B. Kolumba, Art Museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne, by Atelier Peter Zumthor [Internet]. Architecturalrecord.com. 2008 [cited 3 October 2020]. Available from: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/8067-kolumba-art-museum-of-the-archdiocese-of-cologne-by-atelier-peter-zumthor     

[3] Cologne climate: average weather, temperature, precipitation, best time [Internet]. Climatestotravel.com. 2020 [cited 3 October 2020]. Available from: https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/germany/cologne 

[4] KOLUMBA [Internet]. Kolumba.de. 2020 [cited 3 October 2020]. Available from: https://www.kolumba.de/?language=eng 

[5] Mueller H. Energy efficient museum buildings. Renewable Energy. 2013;49:232-236. 

[6] Archute.com 

[7] iloboyou.com 

[8] cladglobal.com