Historical Archive of the City of Cologne Historical Archive of the City of Cologne The Historical Archive of the City of Cologne (, or for short) is the municipal archive of Cologne, Germany. It ranks among the largest communal archives in Europe. A municipal archive has existed in Cologne since the Middle Ages. The oldest inventory of charters in the archive is dated 1408/1409. The oldest document kept in the archive is a charter dated AD 922. The archive contains official records and private documents from all ages of Cologne history, as well as an extensive library of manuscripts. While the adjective "historical" in its name might
Historical Archive of the City of Cologne the 1897 building has been used as a private library by Gerling, a large insurance company. In 1971, a six-story archive building by architect Fritz Haferkamp was built on Severinstraße in the southern part of Cologne's city center. An underlying principle of the design was to protect archival records from fluctuations in weather and climate while creating a balanced room climate. In a move away from the contemporary popularity of electromechanical air conditioning, Haferkamp preferred a structural-physical, self-regulating solution that needed only little additional climate technology. As the "Cologne Model", the building became a model for many later archive buildings