Cologne - Messeturm

Cologne is the fourth-largest city in Germany - and one of the oldest. A Germanic tribe, the Ubii, had a settlement here, this was named by the Romans "Oppidum Ubiorum". In 50 AD, the Romans founded "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", the city then became the provincial capital of "Germania Inferior".

In 1929, when Konrad Adenauer was mayor in Cologne (later he became the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany) the so called "Rheinhallen" were built as exhibition halls of the Cologne Fair.

The uniformly designed brick façade and the 80-meter-high "Messeturm" were completed in "Brick Expressionism", a style that, influenced by the Bauhaus architecture, was popular in the 1920s mainly in Germany and the Netherlands.

In 2005 "koelmesse", the trade fair company, sold the Rheinhallen, that were converted into a listed administration building and studio building for RTL. Meanwhile the complex is named "Rheinpark-Metropole Köln" and hosts various insurance companies.