Cologne, the old run-down beauty, proudly adorns itself to this day with its ring of Romanesque churches like a piece of jewellery. What was almost wiped out in the World upheaval of the last century, is currently bubbling with discussions about architectural changes, which in the forthcoming decades will change its face - the Gerling district, the master plan for the city centre, the Jewish museum, the Municipal Theatre, the recently opened new Rhine Promenade with the Crane Houses, the mosque.
2100 architects are at work within a radius of 20 kilometres around the Cathedral.

Architecture to wear has existed in the work of the international jewellery avant-garde ever since it released itself in the 1960s from the traditions of the material and the conventional themes of the goldsmith’s art – we did not have to look for it. The exhibition shows „architectural“ jewellery in the widest sense: strictly designed rooms, quiet dreams, landscapes condensed into miniature format, inner gardens.
These pieces of architecture simultaneously represent the core positions of the gallery: understanding jewellery and adornment in its widest sense - as art to wear – the art which is closest to people.

As curators of this exhibition and gallery-owners, we want to put Cologne back on the map of contemporary jewellery art and, in art-minded Cologne, revive the passion for the wearing and collecting of contemporary jewellery.

Evi Pilartz
Willem Spanninga