Kolumba, art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne

The church of St Kolumba, first mentioned in 980, was almost entirely destroyed in 1943. Parts of its outer walls survived, along with a Gothic statue of the Virgin on the stump of a pillar. In the 1970s, excavations led by Sven Seiler revealed a Roman residential block beneath the church, inhabited from the 1st century to the end of the 4th, then the successive churches that preceded the late Gothic building.

The foundation stone of a small chapel was laid in the ruins on 8 December 1949, to plans by Gottfried Böhm. Consecrated on 7 December 1950, it shelters the statue of the Virgin known as the 'Madonna in den Trümmern' (the Madonna in the Ruins); a Sacrament chapel was added in 1956-1957.

The diocese's art museum, founded in 1853 as the diocesan museum, took the name Kolumba in 2004. At the end of 1996 the archdiocese launched an anonymous competition for a building on the site of the church, to include all the existing fragments. In June 1997 Peter Zumthor won first prize, by twelve votes to one. Rainer Weitschies of his studio led the project in its final years, after Daniel Schmid, Stephan Meier and Mark Darlington; the site was run by Atelier Zumthor with Stein Architekten of Cologne, for the archdiocese.

The foundation stone was laid on 1 October 2003: a reused stone that had lain on the spot since the 16th century. The building was inaugurated on 14 September 2007. Among other awards, it received the DAM Preis in 2008 and first prize at the 2008 Brick Award.

Zumthor takes over the plan the church left and carries on building on the remains of its walls. The light-grey brick of the building, the 'Kolumba stone' supplied by the Petersen brickworks in Egernsund, Denmark, goes with the tuff, basalt and bricks of the ruin. In 2009 the Pritzker jury saw in it a building rising out of what was left of a church destroyed by bombs, in which place and memory are woven together.

At the centre, an inner courtyard replaces the former medieval cemetery. The largest room, on the ground floor, is enclosed by a filter wall of brickwork that air and light pass through; it wraps around the excavations and Böhm's chapel. The exhibition floor, on an irregular plan, stands on slender supports set into the excavation site. It continues into the northern block, which holds further rooms, a treasury, the staircase, the foyer, the entrance and underground stores. Some rooms have windows as tall as the room.

The walls are light-grey brick and clay plaster. The floors of the foyer and the paving of the courtyard are Jura limestone, terrazzo and mortar, the ceilings mortar cast on formwork. Window frames, doors and door frames are steel, the panelling and furniture wood, textile and leather, the curtains leather and silk. In the excavations, the walkway is padauk, a reddish African wood.

Kolumba is the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne. Its collection, from late antiquity to contemporary art, brings together painting, drawing, prints, decorative art (vessels and jewellery), sculpture, photography, video and everyday objects. The exhibition space covers 1,600 m2 in 21 rooms, garden included.

The museum does not distinguish between permanent collection and temporary exhibitions: each year it shows, in changing contexts, a selection of works mostly from its own collection, renewed in mid-September. The works carry no labels; each visitor receives a small free guide with the ticket.

The chapel 'Madonna in den Trümmern' is part of the building but keeps a use independent of the museum. It remains the church of the small Kolumba congregation, and the Franciscan Minorites still look after it pastorally.

The museum is closed on Tuesdays. Guided tours take place before 12 and after 5 pm, by registration only. It also closes from Weiberfastnacht (the carnival Thursday) to Ash Wednesday inclusive, on 24 and 25 December, on 31 December and 1 January, and each year at the end of summer while the new annual exhibition is installed.

The building is almost entirely accessible without barriers. It stands at Kolumbastraße 4, in the centre of Cologne, near the opera house.