Stapelhaus

As early as the High Middle Ages, a hall for the sea-fish trade stood on this spot in the market quarter by the Rhine. Fish was an important food for the people of Cologne: it was considered cheap for those on low incomes and was permitted during Lent. In the Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages, Cologne was the main trading hub of the entire West for fish, especially sea fish such as herring, stockfish, bloaters and plaice.

Under the staple right, all goods had to be offered in Cologne for purchase and processing – in the case of fish, above all for preserving. Inside the building the fish were washed, cut up, salted, stored and repacked, marked with Cologne's brand of the Three Crowns and sold on. Drainage pipes led the foul-smelling liquids straight into the Rhine.

In 1425 the hall between the Fischpforte and Mühlengasse was demolished and rebuilt; it now also served to tax further goods such as butter, cheese, bacon, oil, salt, flax and tar. From 1558 to 1561 the Late Gothic, battlement-crowned building known from Rhine panoramas was erected. At around 46 m in side length it was unusually long, its eastern wall forming part of the city wall while a half-timbered front faced the Rhine. In its two storeys merchants could rent lockable chambers (Stuvven).

The staple right remained in force until 1815, when the Congress of Vienna prohibited the enforced intermediary trade; the compulsory transhipment finally ended in 1831. In the second half of the 19th century the storage rooms became superfluous, also because of the railway. In 1900–1901 the city had the building remodelled by city architect Friedrich Carl Heimann; it gained its slender stair tower, sometimes called the Ritterturm or Geschlechterturm, along with refined dining rooms and halls on the lower floor. The name „Stapelhaus" was probably chosen only at this point. From 1902 until its destruction, the upper floor housed the Museum of Natural History, which displayed native and foreign animal groups. In 1942 and again in 1944/45 incendiary bombs destroyed the building; only the stair tower and remnants of the south side survived. In the 1960s a plain reconstruction with the hipped roof common in Cologne was built on the retained ground plan.