Mar 05 2009
The lost object
Here are some photos of the recently collapsed Cologne archives building. It collapsed on the night of March 3, 2009, for reasons still unknown to observers and researchers. The structural integrity of the building was assumed to be superior among other buildings of its type, and was never questioned until the day after its collapse. The disaster cannot be explained, and many people in the building perished because no one was expecting such an event. Major structural re-evaluations will probably take place with respect to other city archive buildings, because for Cologne it’s too late. Architecture is never the enduring phenomenon that it’s expected to be.
