La Neustadt : le quartier impérial allemand (1870-1918)

Three out of four suburbs wiped out, serious and numerous damages in the city centre, such is the heavy toll of the siege and the French defeat of 1870. Although the reconstruction was completed in five years, the extension of the city, postponed since the 18th century, is more than ever on the agenda of the business community, concerned about efficient infrastructures (railway station, port, traffic, etc.) while the political authorities want, for the "Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine", an exemplary, grandiose capital, all to the glory of the Empire and Germanity

Thus, in April 1880, they approved the master plan for the new city, 386 hectares in addition to the 230 hectares of the old core. The author of the project was J.-G. Conrath, municipal architect since 1849. It first provides for a prestigious area reserved for official buildings (imperial palace, ministries, seat of the regional assembly, library and university). It was completed around 1900. The other sector, with its collective or individual living quarters, progressed more slowly and continued after 1920.

It is a very interesting urban creation which has almost no equivalent following the destruction of the 2nd World War; it is made up of squares, wide, airy avenues decorated with trees, and several sites where monumental and a strong sense of "landscape" are happily combined (for example the banks of the Ill with the church of Saint-Paul). The public buildings and private houses reflect a certain taste for historicizing eclecticism (Italian or German neo-Renaissance, neo-baroque, etc.), in the midst of which stand some quite astonishing Art Nouveau constructions such as the "Egyptian House".

DATAtourisme France