Alsace architecture – Structure of half-timbered houses

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Metropolis of Eguisheim

All these outdated homes in Alsatian villages are true artworks, making the Alsatian village an open-air museum. Heritage represents the legacy of our ancestors, however it’s also the results of our actions in preserving, understanding and sharing this collective wealth. Within the villages of Alsace, you possibly can observe the evolution of structure via the strategies used to construct homes!

Right here, I'd wish to give you just a few guides to analyzing and deciphering Alsatian structure, so to really grasp the richness of those villages! Sadly, not everybody can benefit from this richness as of late.

Centuries in the past, the overwhelming majority of individuals have been peasants. Most may neither learn nor write. That's why homes have been embellished with quite a lot of indicators, offering details about the constructing's historical past, occupation, social standing and so forth. A number of such indicators have survived within the streets of Alsatian villages.

Listed below are just a few guides that can assist you learn to learn Alsatian homes, so that you'll by no means see them in the identical approach once more!

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Metropolis of Colmar

Half-timbered homes might be discovered throughout Europe (particularly in France and the German-speaking nations)… But it surely's price noting that, relying on the area, half-timbered homes are typically constructed utilizing totally different strategies. The very French method, for instance, is half-timbering the place all of the beams are shut collectively, fairly totally different from Germanic half-timbering.

Alsace is on the border with Germany, and though it's in France, its half-timbered homes are relatively Germanic. Certainly, for a very long time, this area belonged to the Holy German Empire, so the structure and traditions are very a lot Germanic. Even when France took over these lands, earlier than shedding them once more in 1870, and a few cultural mixing was achieved to provide Alsace an excellent stronger id, the structure of the half-timbered homes has primarily all the time remained Germanic.

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Village of Hunspach

The centuries have given Alsace, the area with the best density of medieval fortifications in Europe, its personal id and a wealthy architectural heritage. As cash flowed in, Alsatian cities may afford to construct fortified castles, grand homes, and so on. However wars decimated the whole lot within the area. Essentially the most damaging was undoubtedly the 30 Years' Conflict, when cities and villages have been burnt down by the Swedes within the early seventeenth century. After these demolitions, we needed to rebuild. And even at this time, many of the half-timbered homes date again to this era of renewal. So we're fortunate to have a assorted and, above all, historical heritage.

Every home is a web page of historical past that has been preserved, standing proudly in at this time's streets, the place the whole lot appears to have been modernized.

In any case, probably the most lovely homes you'll see in Alsace are miraculous. Prior to now, many buildings have been razed to the bottom for lack of recognition of their heritage worth, which on the time was nonetheless a relatively superfluous notion. Many treasures have been misplaced, and pages of historical past have been consumed. For future generations, it's necessary that they acknowledge the heritage left by our ancestors, and that their data goes past easy notion or subjective, even aesthetic, judgement.

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Metropolis of Turckheim

Now let's discuss half-timbering. The Alsatian home is designed to be demountable and earthquake-resistant. In reality, on this seismic area, we found that half-timbering was effectively suited to the native context. The home has a number of sections:

– A floor ground constructed primarily of stone

– The timber body, comprising the beams that type the "skeleton" of the home.

– The "hourdage", filling within the partitions, often with cob

– The roof.

As architectural improvements progressed, staff got here up with two strategies.

– The lengthy timber method, characterised by a primary beam working from the underside to the highest of the home.

– The short-wood method, characterised by shorter, one-storey-high vertical posts that enable the home to overhang the road. Every storey is thus autonomous, making certain its personal stability.

The long-wood method is uncommon in cities, however somewhat extra widespread within the older homes of small Alsatian villages. More often than not, fir wooden, which is ample within the area, was used for half-timbering.

In Alsatian homes, the ground of 1 storey might be seen from the road! In reality, joists are often seen from the road to assist a corbel (an overhang). As soon as the beams had been laid and assembled, the partitions have been crammed with cob: a combination of clay, chopped straw, typically horsehair and water, utilized in opposition to planks or picket sticks. Typically, partitions have been even crammed with tough stone, or a lot later, with brick.

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Sixteenth-century village home ; Uncommon, long-timbered home, ecomusée d'alsace

Fires have all the time been the scourge of cities. Cities and villages have all been the victims of a number of fires, typically inflicting appreciable devastation. In reality, half-timbered homes are typically caught collectively, and in these days folks heated with wooden and lit by candlelight. So, just a few rules have been made in Alsatian cities.

– Church bells or city towers have been rung to announce curfew: inhabitants needed to smother the final embers of their fires.

– Each household was required to have a hearth bucket.

– Creation of Schlupf, separating sure homes from others, to behave as firebreaks.

These Schlupfs have survived to this present day in most Alsatian cities.

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View of a standard schlupf in Rouffach. This kind of format could be very outdated however not very uncommon.

Despite this, fires have been all too frequent, a lot in order that within the 18th century, half-timbered building was banned. However the inhabitants revolted, as stone homes have been way more costly than conventional ones. So the bottom and second flooring have been allowed to be stone, however the higher flooring have been to be half-timbered.

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This 18th-century home in Ribeauvillé is an efficient instance of this kind of structure, after the restrictions.

Subsequent time, we'll be trying on the indicators on the porches of the massive gates on the bottom ground of the homes. Among the engraved indicators within the stone inform us in regards to the trades that have been carried out in these homes centuries in the past!