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Strasbourg
 

For other places named Strasburg or Straßburg see Strasburg.

Strasbourg (French: Strasbourg, pronounced ; Alsatian: Strossburi; German: Straßburg) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace région of northeastern France, with approximately 650,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the préfecture (capital) of the Bas-Rhin département.

The city's Germanic name means "town (at the crossing) of roads". Stras- is cognate to the English street from the German equivalence of the word, Straße, while -bourg from the German -burg ("fortress, town") is cognate to the English borough.

Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as of road, rail and river communications.

Strasbourg is the seat of the Council of Europe, of the European Court of Human Rights and of the European Parliament, though the latter also holds some sessions in Brussels.

Strasbourg served as the host city for the start (prologue) and Stage 1 of the 2006 Tour de France.

Geography

Strasbourg is situated on the Ill River, where it flows into the Rhine on the frontier with Germany. The German town across the Rhine is Kehl.

History

At the site of Strasbourg, the Romans established a military outpost and named it Argentoratum. It belonged to the Germania Superior Roman province. From the 4th century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Archbishopric Strasbourg.

The Alamanni fought a battle against Rome in Strasbourg in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their king Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On January 2, 366 the Alamanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers, to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the 5th century the Alamanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

The town was occupied successively in the 5th century by Alamanni, Huns and Franks, who gave it its present name. In 842, Strasbourg was the site of the Oath of Strasbourg, the trilingual text of which is considered to contain, besides Latin and German, also the oldest written document in the French language. A major commercial centre, the town came under control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The Straßburger Münster was completed in 1439, and became the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. During the 1520s the city embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther, whose adherents established a university in the following century. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early bookprinting in the Holy Roman Empire and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as her Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where also the slightly different Augsburg confession was handed over to the emperor.

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early 16th century and the establishment of "Imperial Circles" (Reichskreise), Strasbourg was part of the "Upper Rhenish Circle", a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of the empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

During the Thirty Years' War, the Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral. However, it was suddenly seized by King Louis XIV of France in September 1681, whose unprovoked annexation was recognised by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove many Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1598) by the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685) was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace. Strasbourg cathedral, however, had to be handed over from the Lutherans to the Catholics. The German Lutheran university persisted until the French revolution. Famous students were Goethe and Herder.

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise" on April 25, 1792, in Strasbourg during a dinner organised by Frédéric de Dietrich, Strasbourg's mayor. However, Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. With the growth of industry and commerce, the city's population tripled in the 19th century to 150,000. Annexed to the newly-established German Empire, as part of the Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen, in 1871, following the Franco-Prussian War (Treaty of Frankfurt), the city was restored to France after World War I, in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles without a plebiscite, the outcome of which might not have been too convincing from the French point of view. This was because Strasbourg was almost exclusively German-speaking and Reichstag election results before the war revealed only a small percentage of votes for pro-French political parties. It was again effectively a part of Germany during World War II, from 1940 to 1944.

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the very first European institutions. In 1949, the city was chosen to be the site of the Council of Europe, and since 1979, Strasbourg has been a seat of the European Parliament, although sessions are held in Strasbourg only four days each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss (also known as "IPE IV"), built in 1998, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main CoE building, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.

In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

Main sights

Architecture

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic cathedral, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite-France district alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

Strasbourg's historic centre, the Grande Île (great island), has been classified a World Heritage site by the UNESCO in 1988, for the first time for a whole city centre. Besides the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Eglise Saint-Etienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Anglo-American bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Eglise Saint-Thomas St. Thomas:*]" target="_blank" >with its Silbermann Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune:[http://infopuq.uquebec.ca/~uss1010/orgues/france/strasbourgspj3.jpg,*,*]" target="_blank" >, the Gothic Eglise Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass etc. *] The Neo-gothic church Saint-Pierre le Vieux catholique serves as a shrine for several 15th-century altars that had been saved from destruction and installed a century ago.

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several palaces, among which the Palais Rohan (now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Others are the Hôtel du Préfet, the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts and the city-hall Hôtel de Ville (hôtel particulier meaning palace). As for French Neo-classicism, it is the opera house on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district (Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, Place Arnold), being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damages during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues like Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch and Rue du Maréchal Joffre are homogenous, surprisingly high (up to seven stores) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticised of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomises the grand scale and stylistical sturdiness of this period.

Impressive examples of prussian military architecture of the 1880s can be found along the newly (re)opened Rue du Rempart, displaying large scale fortifications among which the aptly named Kriegstor (war gate).

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (the extended Palais des Fêtes, some houses and villas on Avenue de la Robertsau and Rue Sleidan), good examples of post-WWII functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school (Cité de la Musique et de la Danse), the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

Strasbourg also features a number of prominent parks, of which at least three are of historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, created for Joséphine de Beauharnais and displaying noteworthy French gardens, a little neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the fortifications erected by Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban; the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a Neo-baroque castle that now houses the Schiller International University. The Jardin Botanique (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine, is the most recent (2004) and most extended (60 hectare) park of the agglomeration.

Finally, the city is also home to some beautiful bridges, among which the medieval Ponts Couverts with its four towers is the most spectacular. Next to it is another part of the Vauban fortifications, the barrage Vauban. Other nice bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (iron), as well as the futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

Museums

For its comparatively small size, Strasbourg displays a large quantity and variety of museums.
  • The Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame (located in a part-Gothic, part-Renaissance building next to the Cathedral) houses a large and renowned collection of medieval and Renaissance upper-Rhenish art, among which original sculptures, plans and stained glass from the Cathedral and paintings by Hans Baldung and Sebastian Stoskopff.
  • The Musée d'art moderne et contemporain is among the largest museums of its kind in France.
  • The Musée des Beaux-Arts owns paintings by Hans Memling, Francisco de Goya, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Giotto di Bondone, Sandro Botticelli, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, El Greco, Correggio, Cima da Conegliano and Piero di Cosimo, among others.
  • The Musée des Arts décoratifs, located in the sumptuous former residence of the cardinals of Rohan, the palais Rohan, displays a reputable collection of 18th century furniture and china.
  • The Musée archéologique presents a vast display of regional findings from the first ages of man to the 6th century.
  • The very large Musée Alsacien is dedicated to every aspects of traditional alsacian daily life.
  • The Musée zoologique de l'ULP et de la ville de Strasbourg is one of the oldest in France and is especially famous for its gigantic collection of birds.
  • Le Vaisseau (the nave) is a scientific museum, especially designed for children.
  • The Musée historique is closed until June 2007. It is dedicated to the tumultuous history of the city and displays among other things the Grüselhorn, the medieval horn that was blown every evening at 10 to order the Jews out of the city.
There are also the Collection Tomi Ungerer, the Musée de Sismologie et Magnétisme terrestre, the Musée Pasteur, the Musée d'égyptologie (all three being part of the University and only open to public on a more restricted scale), the Cabinet des estampes et des dessins (displaying six centuries of drawings and engravings) and the Musée de la Navigation sur le Rhin, also going by the name of Naviscope.

Demography

1684 1789 1851 1871 1910 1921 1936 1946 1954 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2004
22 000 49 943 75 565 85 654 178 891 166 767 193 119 175 515 200 921 228 971 249 396 253 384 248 712 252 338 264 115 273 100

Today, the metropolitan area of Strasbourg reaches 650,000 inhabitants and the eurodistrict 868, 000 inhabitants *.

Education

Strasbourg, which was a humanism centre, has a long history of higher-education excellence, melting French and German intellectual traditions. Although Strasbourg had been annexed by Royal France in 1683, it still remained connected to the German-speaking intellectual world throughout the 18th century and the university attracted numerous students from the Holy Roman Empire with Goethe, Metternich and Montgelas, who studied law in Strasbourg, among the most prominent. Nowadays, Strasbourg is known to offer among the best university courses in France, after Paris.

There are three universities in Strasbourg:

The campus of the École nationale d'administration (ENA) is located in Strasbourg (the former one being in Paris). The location of the "new" ENA - which trains most of the nation's high-ranking civil servants - was meant to give a European vocation to the school.

The École supérieure des Arts décoratifs (ESAD) is an art school of Europe-wide reputation.

The permanent campus of the International Space University (ISU) is located in the south of Strasbourg (Illkirch-Graffenstaden).

Transport Systems

A modern-looking tram system has operated in Strasbourg since 1994 by the regional transit company Compagnie des Transports Strasbourgeois. A former tram system, partly following a different route, had been operation since 1878 but was ultimately dismantled in 1960.

Two TGV lines are planned to link Strasbourg to the European high-speed train network:

  1. TGV Est (Paris-Strasbourg) (under construction, to open 2007)
  2. TGV Rhin-Rhône (Strasbourg-Lyon) (to open 2011)

European role

Strasbourg is:

Recently, Strasbourg has been the subject of some debate. Cecilia Malmström, a Swedish member of the European Parliament, started an online petition in which the monthly travel between Brussels to Strasbourg by members of the Parliament at an annual cost of 200 million euros is criticised and a call to make Brussels the sole seat of the European Parliament is made. So far this petition claims signatures of over 800,000 European citizens.

Strasbourg also houses the Eurocorps headquarters as well as the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines ([http://www.pheur.org/site/page_628.php) and the Franco-German television channel, Arte.

France and Germany are creating a Eurodistrict straddling the Rhine, combining the Greater Strasbourg and the Ortenau district of Baden-Württemberg, with some common administration. The combined population of this district is 868,000 *.

Miscellaneous

Births

Strasbourg was the birthplace of:

See also

Famous residents

See also

Twin towns

Strasbourg is twinned with:

Others

British art-punk band The Rakes had a minor hit in 2005 with, their song 'Strasbourg'. This song features witty lyrics with themes of espionage and vodka and includes a cleverly-placed count of 'eins, zwei, drei, vier!!', even though Strasbourg's spoken language is French. '70s Dutch progressive band Focus included a track called 'La Cathédrale de Strasbourg' on their 1974 album Hamburger Concerto. It included chimes from a cathedral-like bell.

See also

References

External links

Strasbourg

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