Der Stoff-Pavillon geht auf Zeitreise und erkundet zum Tag des Offenen Denkmals den Zeugniswert der Architektur Wilhelm Riphahns

In the organizer's words:

The time has come again!

The Moeller fabric pavilion, in its current location, was officially opened on Saturday, September 6, 1952. So now we're turning the numbers around and looking back to the year '52 in the year '25!

Following the tongue-in-cheek homage to the 1950s, which primarily looked at the style-forming potential of this extraordinary period in the middle of the last century, the fabric pavilion now turns its attention to the often neglected testimonial value of Wilhelm Riphahn's architecture for this particular era of the immediate post-war period.

The result is an exhibition that associates a certainly unexpected mélange of genres and content, reflecting the conditions and ambivalences of life during this period, its dynamics of change and, above all, its significance for the present day:

Maurice Cox and Claudia Moeller use style-defining photographs by Karl Hugo Schmölz to visualize the conditions under which the awakening of the 1950s drew strength. Alongside monumental images of post-war Cologne stands the counter-design in Riphahn's version.

A central aspect that united Karl Hugo Schmölz and Wilhelm Riphahn in their view of the world was that the true protagonist of their vision was light.

With this in mind, Chris Hein creates the illusion for visitors in the basement of the building with room-filling projections based on historical images that they have actually traveled back in time to Hahnenstrasse in the 1950s.

Claus Richter shows the creative resistance of the vision in the poetic figure of the decorator:

His subtle irony visualizes excellently in this context that the understanding of the 1950s as a petty-bourgeois retreat into privacy and superficial decor can in no way do justice to this period.

On Open Monument Day, Claudia Moeller and Jörg Jung, cultural journalist and former spokesperson for the "Courage for Culture" initiative to save Wilhelm Riphahn's playhouse, invite visitors to join them for a guided tour of the exhibition at 3 pm.

A relaxed start on Sunday: 10-11am yoga in the monument with Yvonne Castillo!