Modern art
includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era.[1] The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.[2] Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art.
Peter Zumthor’s remarkable museum of modern art Cologne meshes ancient and modern to create a timeless and evocative building.
‘The largest heap of rubble in the world,” is how the German architect Rudolf Schwarz described Cologne in 1945. Over the course of 262 bombing raids, 78% of the city and almost 95% of its historic centre had been destroyed. After the war, Schwarz was handed the job of drawing up the reconstruction plan. His Stadlandschaften (“city landscape”) scheme laid down a network of new infrastructure and associated green spaces but, where possible, called for the medieval street pattern to be re-established.
