Keramion

Keramion is a museum in Frechen devoted to ceramics. It stands in a round building designed to resemble a potter’s wheel, with a roof thirty-two metres across supported inside by five funnel-shaped columns. The architect was Peter Neufert, working with engineer Stefan Polónyi; the structure was completed in 1971 and later placed under protection as a monument. The museum brings together two collections. One covers the region’s ceramic past, including Frechen’s Bartmann jugs with their bearded mask necks and the refined Köln-Frechen ware made under Toni Ooms between 1919 and 1934. The other is Gottfried Cremer’s private gathering of roughly five thousand unique pieces by more than five hundred artists from thirty-five countries, one of Europe’s largest such holdings. Inside, visitors find the permanent display of historical ceramics alongside rotating exhibitions drawn from Cremer’s collection. Changing special shows explore how clay is used in art, design and applied work, while the triennial Frechener Keramikpreis gives young ceramists a chance to exhibit in the same rooms.