History of Cologne (Cologne Tower), one of Cologne's most prominent highrises. Secondly, a permanent improvement in traffic infrastructure, which makes Cologne one of the most easily accessible metropolitan areas in Central Europe. Due to the economic success of the Cologne Trade Fair, the city arranged a large extension to the fair site in 2005. The original buildings, which date back to the 1920s, are rented out to RTL, Germany's largest private broadcaster, as their new corporate headquarters. A controversy started after Muslims in Cologne sought to build a mosque. Most important for the history of Cologne since the Middle Ages is the Cologne
Historical Archive of the City of Cologne libraries that did not suffer major losses during the French occupation in the early years of the 19th century. After the secularization of abbeys and colleges of canons in Cologne in the early years of the 19th century, the French government ordered their archives to be stored in the state archives in Düsseldorf. It was not until 1949 that a mayor of Cologne succeeded in recovering 19,000 charters and many other records for the Cologne municipal archives. In 1818, the city of Cologne was bequeathed Ferdinand Franz Wallraf's major collection of art, books and manuscripts. After Wallraf's death in 1824,