Kranhäuser

When I first arrived at city of Köln, the train was slowly pulling into the central train station. I was quickly scanning the city for any obvious structures that I might want to visit. The most important one of course is the Köln Cathedral but that was easy to get to since that my hotel is so near the cathedral. There were also other structures that were good to visit. One of the more modern and certainly unique structures which I saw looked like one of those cranes which you would see in ports. These cranes would lift containers to and from ships. However, what I saw wasn’t a crane, it was a building. It seems that I just saw the Kranhäuser.

The Kranhäuser is a collection of three similar buildings which look like upside down L’s not unlike a crane used in ports. This is probably intentional since they did call it a Kranhaus. Cologne was a major trade hub in the country and it’s position by the River Rhine, makes its suitable for cargo transport by river. There are remaining actual cranes here but it is mostly for display now. The Kranhäuser is now a place for offices and luxury apartments. The pillar which helps support the horizontal load also provides lift services. I didn’t actually go in the building but I would assume that there are other lifts in the main body of the building. After all, it won’t make sense for occupants to take the lift all the way to the top and walk down to where they intended to go to.

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