A Piece of the Sky
Cologne is one of two European cities I love most of all. It is, perhaps, one of the few laid-back cities in Germany, as close as Germans could ever come to Los Angeles. Most of its history has been noted for lower levels of racism than other German cities. When the Jews were expelled in the fifteenth century, it was done matter-of-fact, without the typical violence or vitriol. Still, racism is present, and I not only witnessed the racist attitudes toward Turks, I personally received some of that ill-will on a few occasions. Cologners are uncomfortable with Turks. Whenever I raise questions about why Turks could not become good Germans (or why they weren’t turning into them), I am met with hostility. Clearly, Turks need institutions that cater to them if the rest of the city is uninviting.
Ashamed at the way the Cologners have behaved, I feel that the story is being unfairly reduced to a problem of either German racism or east vs. west. Indeed, the skyline is as much of an issue as religious and minority rights, one that has been around much longer. The skyline dominated by the cathedral has been an iconic image for Cologners and Germans alike. It's not a simple matter to let a minaret, or anything, share the skies with the spires.
The Dom, Cologne’s cathedral, has been a central and multifaceted symbol in German public life. The Hohenzollern monarchs invested in its completion in the 19th century in order to show their dedication to the goal of a unified Germany (and to placate the local population). Görres saw it as a symbol of Catholicism contributions to German history. The Reichensperger brothers coopted the completion of its construction in order to argue for the political and religious rights of Catholic Germans. Adenauer saw it as the central point where German democracy and liberty were rooted. For decades German newspapers and magazines used the Dom as a symbol for the nation, much as American media uses the Statue of Liberty. No wonder that Germans continually choose the Dom, not the Brandenburg Gate, as their destination of choice (according to a recent poll in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).
It’s presence, however, does more to define the urban space of Cologne. Reaching high into the sky, massive stones piled on top of one another, the Dom is visible from miles away across the plain of the lower Rhine River. James Fenimore Cooper and Heinrich Heine wrote about how transfixed they were in its presence as they approached Cologne. In the city, they saw it looming around every corner, drawing them closer. It dominated every vantage, every angle. Hugo, climbing high up in its spire, saw a junction between nations, and perhaps a hope that nationalism would not divide the peoples of Europe.
The Cologners themselves took the Dom as their cue for the look of the city. Cologne was a city of faith and commerce, but not of industry, and its many entrepreneurs would locate factories in other German cities rather than ruin the look of their own. The population grew despite the absence of industry, and only in the 1920s did Adenauer offer any plans to create an industrial district on the outskirts of city municipal land. The one potentially competing structure, the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge, was positioned in order to enhance the grandeur of the city by framing the Dom for train passengers crossing over the Rhine River.
Cologne’s spatial development encapsulated resistance to aspects of capitalism (although not capitalism itself). Traditional values (especially religious) could be harmonized with modernity. The medieval city need not become a modern slum. Lefebvre may have said that the Cologners deceived themselves, controlling only the representation of the city while capital worked on urban space. Nonetheless, the Dom made the landscape, inside and outside the city, making it a pole of opposition to unchecked modernization.
The skyline of Cologne, the Dom looming high above it, is part of the city’s cultural heritage. UNESCO even threatened to withdraw the city’s designation as a world heritage site if the skyline were disrupted by planned high-rise buildings across the river in Deutz. As much as there seems to be a traditional battle between faiths, the controversy over the mosque and its stature also touches on issues of urban space and cultural preservation. It would be naive throw any structure into the air without considering its effect. Space is far from a neutral in this instance.