The city of Cologne has an eventful history. It is characterized by change. This change is particularly evident in the cityscape. It is constantly being built, rebuilt and renovated. The Rheinauhafen can also look back on a long and above all exciting history. It looks very different today than it did 50 years ago.
Did you know that cows used to graze on the tip of the island on which the Chocolate Museum now stands? You probably didn't know that. The Rheinauhafen looks back on an interesting history. A lot has changed over the years, from the northern tip with the Malakoff Tower to the other end and the old powerhouse.
I'll tell you exactly what here:
Let's start with the heart of the Rheinauhafen, the powerhouse. As the name suggests, this is where the power of the Rheinauhafen came from. This means that this building supplied the entire port area with energy. Using electricity and water pressure, the powerhouse supplied 34 hydraulic gantry cranes, 16 electric cranes, five steam cranes and a large number of elevators in the customs halls. A total of 3190 meters of pressure pipes were laid.
Today, the powerhouse is home to various creative agencies. Back then, energy was produced there, but today the focus is more on creative, intellectual products.
An important part of the Rheinauhafen is certainly the various bridges over the Rhine that the Rheinauhafen has seen over the centuries. In Roman times in the old Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, as Cologne was then called, a 420-metre-long wooden bridge with stone piers connected the two sides of the Rhine. The structure was built under Emperor Constantine I. For this reason, the Roman Bridge was often referred to as the Constantine Bridge.
The bridge came to an end when it was finally demolished in 960 AD. It then took 862 years until 1822, when the new Deutz Ship Bridge was built. It is called a ship's bridge because it could be opened when larger ships had to pass over it. However, this should not be confused with today's Deutz Bridge. Today it stands 50 meters further south, as the first pure road bridge in the "city with the cathedral".
However, until Cologne Cathedral was completed in 1880, the Rheinauhafen looked very different from today. It was surrounded by trees and was used by the people of Cologne as a local recreation area. As water pollution was not yet as prevalent as it is today, there was also a bathing establishment on the river side of the Rheinauhafen: here, citizens could swim in the Rhine, still strictly separated by gender at the time.
Over the course of time, the Rheinauhafen became more and more of a goods transshipment point. Freight traffic increased and the recreational value was lost.
The Rheinauhafen was an excellent opportunity for the city of Cologne to trade. Even the ancient Romans used the Rhine as a transportation route. In the Middle Ages, the cityscape was dominated by so-called Rhine rafts. The wooden rafts, up to 400 meters long and 80 meters wide, transported various goods and merchandise along the Rhine. Cologne had the right to stack goods. This meant that all goods transported on the Rhine had to be offered for sale to the citizens of Cologne for three days. This regulation brought great wealth to the city of Cologne and its citizens. Business boomed and so new, larger warehouses had to be built. Not far from the Chocolate Museum, you can still see the old warehouses today, which were filled to the brim with goods and merchandise of all kinds.
Some of the old warehouses have been restored and almost resemble the image of a Doric chapel today as they did back then.
However, the warehouses are not the only thing that has been restored and modernized in the Rheinauhafen. In 1992, an architectural competition was held to decide what should be done with the old site in order to restore the recreational value of the port. At some point, Cologne's commercial center shifted to ports on the outskirts of the city. The Rheinauhafen was no longer even mentioned as a transshipment port in a port concept from 1988. It had once again become a local recreation area. Today, there is a skate park and a green area at the southern end of the port area.
However, it was a comparatively long process from a local recreation area to the center of Cologne's freight traffic back to a local recreation area. It was a "rocky road". In February 1784, large parts of the port area were destroyed by a severe ice storm. The city took this as an opportunity to extend the Rhine city fortifications. In the course of this, a new fillet wall and an iron swing bridge, which is still in use today in front of the Chocolate Museum, were built. The Malakoff Tower was also built at the northern tip of the island. It functioned as a gate tower at the tip of the harbor basin and can still be seen today. Today, the harbor terrace at the Malakoff Tower is located around it. A beer garden right next to the Chocolate Museum - it doesn't get any better than this on warm sunny days: after an interesting day at the Chocolate Museum, you can end the day in the beer garden with a view of the Malakoff Tower and the Chocolate Museum. Before that, you can of course stock up on chocolate in our Chocolat Shop or enjoy a piece of cake on the terrace of our Chocolat Grand Café with a view of the Rhine.
Today, however, the Malakoff Tower no longer stands on its original side. This is because the tower was moved to the city side during the construction of a new shipyard. In the course of the port expansion around 1898, the port area was drastically enlarged. The cost of the expansion to 26,000 square meters was an impressive 20.27 million marks by the standards of the time. This is roughly equivalent to 10.36 million euros.
Let's stay on the subject of money. As already mentioned, there was a lot of freight traffic at the Rheinauhafen at times. And wherever goods are traded internationally, there is customs. This also applies to the Werthchen.
You're probably wondering whether I've just made a typo or whether autocorrect has intervened. I can tell you that neither is the case. "Werth" is the old name for island. Where the Chocolate Museum stands today, there used to be a natural island off the mainland. As it was still very small in the beginning, the island was affectionately called Werthchen by the people of Cologne. It first appears in historical accounts as a place of execution. Later, it was mainly farmers and fishermen who used the island for agricultural purposes. Much later, the island became a local recreation area. The southern end of the island was connected to the mainland in 1850, creating today's peninsula.
Where were we? Right, with the customs houses. These buildings sometimes had five floors and could therefore store a lot of goods and merchandise temporarily. During the Second World War, however, the halls were badly damaged, so the reconstruction later clearly focused on functionality. Today, the former customs halls house various offices, as well as the German Sport & Olympia Museum right next to the Chocolate Museum.
However, the museum has not always stood as it does today. Like chocolate itself, our building can look back on an exciting history.
Initially, the main customs office, the most important building in Rheinauhafen, stood at the top of the island. The building, which today houses the cultural history of our exhibition on the upper floor and the world tour of cocoa on the first floor, was located at the tip of the 510-metre-long customs port.
In the early 1990s, Hans Imhoff, Cologne's chocolate king, wanted to fulfill his dream: His own chocolate museum. His wife Gerburg Klara Imhoff came across the former main customs office, which had served the state administration until the end.
When designing the museum, the main aim was to harmoniously combine the old main customs office with the new museum building. The old building was completely integrated into the new complex, and the transition from old to new is seamless.
Those of you who would like to take a closer look at the Chocolate Museum are welcome to do so. Just take a stroll along the Rheinauhafen and take a look at the buildings described. The end of your little tour can then be the Chocolate Museum.
On over 4000 square meters, you can find out everything about the brown gold.
And if you feel like it, you can end the day with us on the sun terrace directly above the Rhine in our Chocolat Grand Café.
We look forward to your visit!
