Museum für Angewandte Kunst

In Cologne, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst brings European applied and decorative arts together inside a red-brick museum building. Its collection reaches from the tenth century to the present.

Furniture, carpets, tableware, small sculptures, luxury objects and textiles show how practical things carry artistic ideas. The textile holdings appear mainly in special exhibitions.

The building, designed by Rudolf Schwarz and Josef Bernhard, occupies a former monastery site beside the late-Gothic Minoritenkirche. A square courtyard preserves the monastery’s former ground plan.

A largely glazed courtyard wall opens the architecture towards the museum, while a central staircase connects the entrance hall. The modern design collection occupies two floors.

It presents furniture, lamps, telephones, cameras, radios and household objects alongside works by Dieter Rams, Philippe Starck and Piet Mondrian. Jewellery provides another route through cultural history and design.

The jewellery collection follows themes including symbolism, memory, luxury, gender and identity, linking historical pieces with contemporary practice. Named highlights include Rietveld’s Rood-blauwe Stoel and Sottsass’s Carlton shelf.

The museum also presents works by Kandinsky, Vasarely and Günther Uecker. Together, these collections trace changing relationships between art, craft and everyday objects.