THE WALLRAF IS BEING RENOVATED...
After Ludwig and his wife donated their Picasso collection to the city of Cologne in 1994, the building housing the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and Museum Ludwig became too small for both the old and new artworks. In 1996, the Cologne City Council decided to construct a new, separate building for the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in the historic city centre, based on plans by Cologne architect Oswald Mathias Ungers (1926–2007). On 19 January 2001, the new location, in the immediate vicinity of the historic town hall, was opened.
After 25 very successful years with more than 50 major special exhibitions and more than three million visitors, the time has come to renovate Ungers' iconic building so that it can continue to shine as a beacon of Cologne's culture beyond the city in the future. However, the building will have to be closed for around two years from July 2025 for renovation. The plan is for the Ungers building and the extension designed by Swiss architects Christ & Gantenbein to reopen in autumn 2028 as one large, combined Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud.
