The strange juxtaposition
13th-century Gothic touching industrial steel.
W. Bulach โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Neuwieser โ CC BY-SA 2.0 ยท GraphyArchy โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท GraphyArchy โ CC BY-SA 4.0
The station was in fact destroyed and rebuilt. The cathedral took more than seventy bombs and was badly damaged but did not collapse โ its Gothic stone structure held while most of central Cologne was levelled. It is also said that aircrews used its twin spires as a navigational landmark, which may have contributed to its standing amid the ruin.
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Cologne Central is among Germany's busiest stations, but what makes it striking is its position: it stands a few metres from Cologne Cathedral โ you walk out of the station entrance and the Gothic cathedral is directly in front of you, with almost no distance between them. That proximity was not accidental but a fierce nineteenth-century argument: building a railway station with its chimneys and smoke against Germany's most important cathedral drew wide objection, but the practical case prevailed. The result is one of the strangest architectural juxtapositions in Europe: a thirteenth-century Gothic monument and an industrial-age steel and glass vault touching each other. The vault itself rewards a look: an arched steel structure covering the platforms, originally built in 1894 and rebuilt after wartime destruction. The station is the principal transport hub of western Germany and virtually every visitor to Cologne passes through it โ so glancing up at the vault on the way out costs nothing.
13th-century Gothic touching industrial steel.
A steel structure over the platforms.
Trankgasse 11, 50667 Cologne