Architecture tells a story. It is a story entirely dependent on context, on the time during which a building was built, the place in which it was purposefully constructed, and the generations who came before us to live there. In Strasbourg, you can’t walk through the streets without feeling the weight of the city’s architectural history.
Let me see if I can give you an impression of what that history might look like. In Strasbourg, buildings that might be preserved as priceless historic landmarks, centuries old, are used and reused here as a matter of course. The French feel no need to tear down the old and erect the new in its place; why use energy and resources to construct glass buildings when the old plaster and beams work just fine? Instead, people focus on renovation and careful maintenance to keep their antique edifices as functional as when they were built.
As a result of this architectural mindset, Strasbourg, it is needless to say, is old. Very old. After some inital settlement by prehistoric peoples and the Celts, a military base was constructed here by the Romans around 12 BC. After centuries of Roman activity, the budding town was invaded by a series of early European ethnic groups and settled more permanently into the city as it is seen today. The name “Strazburg” first began appearing in the ninth century. The rest, as they say, is history. The city would grow and flourish during its adoption into the Holy Roman Empire, throughout the Medieval period, the Renaissance, both World Wars, and up to the present day.
A narrow, cobbled street winding away between closely packed shops, cafes, and apartments.
But you don’t need to know all of that in order to appreciate the sense of age and beauty that the city holds. The architecture will tell its own story, one that will invite the casual explorer to fill in the blanks.
In Strasbourg, the buildings are crammed together side by side, long strings of edifices curving along the streets, wedged in wherever there is room. Built over centuries, the architecture varies: narrow buildings, two or three windows wide, will soar up alongside broad, multilevel structures whose floors and gables jut out over the street.
Despite the differences in size and style, the buildings have similar features, giving the haphazard views a common theme. Facades are often plaster etched with geometric designs of crisscrossing wooden beams, giving each building a fascinating and artful texture. Buildings are painted in fanciful pastels: mint greens and muted yellows, soft pinks and periwinkle blues, all interspersed between the more frequent, dignified white. Windows are everywhere, complete with decorative sills and faded shutters. The roofs are steep, peaked, and shingled, sometimes bowed with weight and time. The streets, even the more modern ones that have been recently seamed by tram rails (the city’s favorite form of public transportation), are cobbled, creating a quaint but bruise-inducing surface for walking or biking. Larger thoroughfares are spidered by narrow side streets and back alleys. You’ll search hard to find a street that goes straight for any significant period of time; the roads twist and connect at random, forming circular patterns rather than standard city blocks. If there are two roads that pass on either side of a building, chances are that neither will lead you to the same place.
Downtown Strasbourg has been compared to an island because of the canal that circles the inner-city area. Bridges of steel and stone, no two alike, span the canal at regular intervals; to stand on one bridge is to see three more in either direction. Walkways and bikeways have been constructed both above and alongside the canal, and the brickwork is studded with thick iron rings from the days when commercial ships (rather than touristic guide boats) would glide through the city in search of trade. Swans and ducks frequent the water, and at night the orange lanterns spray light over the surface in ripples that would rival any Monet painting.
Water churns between the buildings that line the canal.
What else to say about the city? The cathedral, the “Notre Dame de Strasbourg,” is unquestionably the city center; it’s spire can be seen from most parts of the city, and is a great point of reference if you get lost in the winding alleyways. More on the cathedral, and other churches of Strasbourg, later. Parks and public courtyards are everywhere; the Orangerie, an estate-turned-park complete with manor house and a free zoo, is a prime example of art fused with history. More on that later as well. With all of the museums, biking and hiking paths, and other public places in Strasbourg, there will be plenty to talk about in the weeks to come.
The story of Strasbourg is ongoing; the city, for all of its antique architecture, is a modern one with contemporary interests. The European Council, a feat of modernity, is located here, and the architecture of the University of Strasbourg is stark with glass and steel. But thanks to the city’s age and preservation, its layers of history create an interesting narrative for the explorer: how many steps has this eroded cobbled pathway endured? How many generations of families have occupied that flat over the bakery? What did they wear? What did they eat? How did they live?
The answers, sketched in history, might be better left to the imagination. The imagination, in turn, is easily fueled by the architecture of Strasbourg.
