Cologne, Germany

Is tourism connected to the indie and avantgard music scene in Cologne? Is it an example for the whole Europe or a separate manifestation?

It's hard to think of a less probable site fot an indie music scene or an art center than Cologne, a grimy industrial metropolis straddling the Rhine with a population just a hair over a million, depending on who’s counting. The last cultural heyday was sometime in the Middle Ages, and since the 1700s its reputation has rested squarely on the scented water, the infamous eau de Cologne. Nearly obliterated by Allied bombing during the World War II, the city was rebuilt in the 1950's with interminable blocks of Bauhaus knockoffs better resembling airport hotels than anything actually livable. Architecturally bland, this unlikely city became a contemporary art capital in the early 90s followed by, or some might say, hand-in-hand with an indie music scene.

While the art world flails for an identity from competition with London, Milan, and Berlin, the independent music scene in Cologne thrives. The various niche music subcultures from house music to punk rock have each spawned their own vintage stores, record shops, clubs, venues, squats, and nightspots, many of them based around Luxemburgerstraße. The city’s conferences, concerts, and clubs attract tourists from all over the world. Examining this model, one wonders whether it can be used as an example for development for the rest of Europe or is it only a localized manifestation that can't be exported.

Mission Report

Before leaving to Cologne for our “adventure,” we imagined discovering a city in which you could really feel the musical influence; we thought to find the same kind of musical reality that the script proposed. We imagined to find a city in which we could find something different concerning this aspect, but it wasn’t strictly like this.
What could we say about Cologne?
Certainly, it’s a lively city, where every tourist can feel involved from its dynamic rhythm; a city with thousand facets and attractions: Cologne has a lot to offer, satisfying every kind of demands the many tourists could have.
It’s high-level artistic and cultural centre, and it’s not difficult to understand why! As far as we got, we started to look for a real indie atmosphere, as somebody told us we would found there, but we really didn't find it, and our impression is that there isn't a musical reality that you can feel everywhere walking around the city.
We met some people from Cologne and we talked with them about it: they agreed with us! This kind of music is one of the many you can find in Cologne, and maybe that’s why it’s not able to influence so much the city cultural development.
Indie in Cologne is not connected to any particular place or pub, it's just linked to single events like concerts or other manifestations which are carried out during the year.
However, the city offers an interesting variety of musical scenes. Actually, it’s an original city where the technological experimentation is possible, and the fusion between music and other kind of art as well. Our shooting tries to express this aspect of the city.
About Luxemburgerstrasse: it’s a street full of restaurants and take aways, but with few clubs. It doesn’t seem the real centre of the Cologne’s nocturnal life.
Francesca Cadau, Michela Onnis