Germany’s new Migration Museum: This is What it Will Look Like

The extent to which migration has shaped Germany since the Second World War will be showcased on a grand scale – with the opening of the Museum Selma, in Cologne, in the very heart of Europe. A former industrial hall will be remodeled for this purpose. Stuttgart-based ATELIER BRÜCKNER has been awarded the general planning contract. The architectural design for the Museum Selma preserves the support structure of the hall, which is over 100 years old, and supplements it with sustainable wooden fittings.

With a total area of around 10,000 square meters, this will be a modern museum designed structurally and conceptually to welcome and work with communities, urban society and marginalized groups. It will join exhibition space with multifunctional event areas, a movie theater, digital laboratory, kids’ space, storage rooms, and a library. The exhibition will showcase examples of the country's largest collection on the history of migration. The dress of a refugee from Togo, a food scale of an Italian labor migrant, the boxing gloves of an immigrant from Mostar. Most objects come from private donors, who all share one common belief: My history is German history.

"With the Museum Selma we are closing a gap in the landscape of German museums," says Dr. Robert Fuchs, director of DOMiD gGmbH, the museum’s non-profit parent organization. More than 21 million people in Germany have either immigrated themselves or come from families that did. Their perspectives are too often overlooked. Our museum will offer a place where democratic debate can flourish, prejudices can be dismantled, and we as a society can grow together."