Cologne Museum Crisis: History Blind

Cologne, the Roman city on the Rhine, is rightly proud of the art and cultural treasures that have accumulated over the course of almost two thousand years of city history. But unfortunately, the ability to prove worthy of this heritage seems threatened and to present it adequately, at least in part. The Römisch-Germanische Museum (RMG), which has been housed at the most prominent location since 1974, directly next to the cathedral, was closed in 2019 due to renovation work and is scheduled to reopen at the earliest at the end of 2030. The cost of upgrading the listed building, which is due to a design by the architects Heinz Röcke and Klaus Renner, has risen from the initial estimated 40 to an estimated 177 million euros. The renovation period has almost doubled: from six to probably eleven years. Since the end of 2019, the RMG has been temporarily housed in the so-called Belgian House near Neumarkt, where at least a selection of the rich stocks can be shown. But now the city wants to close the interim for cost reasons. The finance committee of the city has made a corresponding recommendation with the votes of the Greens, CDU and SPD, which the city council is expected to follow in its meeting on 12 November. Has Cologne suddenly become blind in the Roman eye? It is about 500,000 euros per year, i.e. about 1.5 million, which could be saved by the targeted reopening at the end of 2030. Cultural institutions should not be played off against each other, but the mathematical example is simply too seductive: with the EUR 1.5 billion that Cologne has to estimate for the renovation of opera and theatre, the rent for the interim in the Belgian House could be taken for a while, namely for 3000 years. The outrage in the cultural scene is great, not only in museum circles. The fact that visitor numbers have declined, as is now complained by local politics, was to be expected. In 2018, the last year before the closure, there were still a good 190,000 visitors, after the move to the interim in 2025, only about 35,000 interested people found their way to the Belgian House. Far more serious is another argument: There is much to suggest that the savings are likely to be far lower than desired. Savings of 1.5 million euros are offset by uncalculated costs for clearance, transport and storage of the interim exhibition. In addition, income from the sale of tickets and new costs for the accommodation of the administration are eliminated. 1.5 million euros, who would know better than the people of Cologne, have quickly merged in the merciless light of conditions. The city museum is in an interim phase, the Museum of Applied Art is currently only partially accessible, the Wallraff-Richartz-Museum is completely closed for several years. Cologne has more cultural treasures than the city can cope with.