Geographie Rundbau

Geographie Rundbau stands on Cologne’s western bank of the Rhine as a circular university building. Its origins reach back to the former inner ring of Cologne’s fortifications. Today, the University of Cologne’s Institute of Geography uses the building for teaching, research, and student services. Seminar and practice rooms, a physical geography laboratory, offices, a library, and a map collection fill its academic spaces. The laboratory investigates soil hydrology, microplastics in soils, land-use change, and ecosystem research in Africa.

The basement preserves minerals, rocks, fossils, and scientific reference material assembled since the 1920s. The connected Geomuseum presents highlights including a three-dimensionally preserved Eryops from the Lower Permian of Texas. Ichthyosaur skeletons from southern Germany and the Weyland Collection add further depth to the displays. Plant fossils and rocks from inaccessible locations make that collection especially distinctive. The Würzburg lying stone, an early eighteenth-century fossil forgery, offers one memorable curiosity among the geological specimens. War damage destroyed much of the original material, while later restoration and additions rebuilt collections that still support research and teaching.