Museum Schnütgen

Museum Schnütgen occupies the Romanesque church of St. Cäcilien at Cäcilienstraße 29-33 in Cologne's Altstadt-Süd, a short walk from the Neumarkt Stadtbahn stop in North Rhine-Westphalia. The museum is devoted to medieval art and takes its name from Alexander Schnütgen, a cleric and collector whose donation of sacred objects formed the core of the collection. Setting the works inside a church gives them a context that few museums can match. Visitors walk through the nave and side areas past large wooden sculptures, carved ivories, delicate goldsmith work, reliquaries, stained glass, and richly embroidered textiles from the early Middle Ages to the late Gothic period. Cologne was a major centre of medieval craft and devotion, and many objects come from the churches of the Rhineland, giving the collection a strong local character. Particular attention goes to Madonna figures, crucifixes and altar pieces, whose faces and drapery show regional workshop styles. Compared with the city's larger museums the scale is intimate, and a visit generally lasts one to one and a half hours. The building is usually quiet, and weekday mornings are the calmest time, with a small increase in visitors at weekends and when special exhibitions are on. Light through the church windows suits photographing sculptures, though rules on flash and photography should be checked at the entrance. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, closed on Mondays, and current opening hours and fares are listed at museenkoeln.de. Because the Neumarkt and the shopping streets are close, the museum pairs easily with a stop at the nearby Romanesque churches, such as St. Aposteln, or with the NS-Dokumentationszentrum, which is also in Altstadt-Nord.