Flora Köln - Palais im Park, Entertainment center in Riehl, Germany
Flora Köln is a palatial historicist building in Cologne's Botanical Garden in Riehl, opened in 1864 as a palm house with a glass roof carried by a cast-iron barrel structure. It covers 1870 m² and has six rooms; the ground-floor Festsaal holds up to 900 people. Gutted and rebuilt from 2011 to 2014, it now has a closed crossed barrel roof of metal.
Cologne architects Max Nohl and Joseph Felten designed the Flora, drawing on London's Crystal Palace; it opened on 14 August 1864 as a palm house with a cast-iron barrel roof. Heavily damaged in World War II, the iron roof was removed and replaced by a single-storey hipped brick roof with small tent roofs on the towers. Listed as a monument in June 1980, it was closed in 2009 for structural defects and rebuilt 2011–2014 with a closed metal barrel roof.
The name Flora refers to the Roman goddess of flowers, fitting a building opened in 1864 as a palm house in Cologne's Botanical Garden. Since June 2006 the city has entrusted its operation to Koelncongress GmbH, which runs it for congresses, concerts and social gatherings. The ground-floor Festsaal seats up to 900 people.
The venue sits next to Cologne Zoo with parking available underneath the Zoo Bridge for easy access. The building features accessibility accommodations throughout, making it accessible for all visitors.
The Flora was awarded the plaque "Unseren Dank dem Bauherrn" by the VdK Nordrhein-Westfalen social association in April 2008 for exemplary barrier-free construction. The building has six rooms in total, and the ground-floor Festsaal holds up to 900 people.
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