Colmar

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For the town in Luxembourg, see Colmar-Berg.

Coordinates: 48°04′54″N 7°21′20″E / 48.08166667°N 7.35555556°E / 48.08166667; 7.35555556

Colmar
Old town
Location
Colmar is located in France
Colmar
Colmar
Administration
Country France
Department Haut-Rhin
Arrondissement Colmar
Intercommunality Colmar
Mayor Gilbert Meyer
(2008–2014)
Statistics
Elevation 175–214 m (570–700 ft)
(avg. 197 m/650 ft)
Land area1 66.57 km2 (25.70 sq mi)
Population2 66,886  (2006)
 - Density 1,005 /km² (2,600 /sq mi)
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code 68066/ 68000
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.
2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Colmar (French: Colmar, pronounced: [kɔlmaʁ]; Alsatian: Colmer [ˈkolməʁ]; German: Colmar, between 1871-1918 and 1940-1945 also Kolmar) is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in northeastern France.

It is the capital of the department. Colmar is also the seat of the highest jurisdiction in Alsace, the appellate court.

It is situated along the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the "Capital of Alsatian Wine" (capitale des vins d'Alsace).

Colmar is the center of the arrondissement of Colmar, which has 86,832 inhabitants.

Colmar is the home town of the painter and engraver Martin Schongauer and the sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi. The city is renowned for its well preserved old town, its numerous architectural landmarks and its museums, among which the Unterlinden Museum.

Contents

[edit] History

Colmar was founded in the 9th century. This was the location where Charles the Fat held a diet in 884. Colmar was granted the status of a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire in 1226. During the Thirty Years' War, the city was taken by the armies of Sweden in 1632, who held it for two years. The city was conquered by France under Louis XIV in 1697.

In 1679 (Treaties of Nijmegen) Colmar was ceded to France. With the rest of Alsace, Colmar was annexed by the newly formed German Empire in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian War. It returned to France after World War I, was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1940, and then reverted to French control after the battle of the "Colmar Pocket" in 1945.

The Colmar Treasure, hidden during the Black Death, was discovered here in 1863.

[edit] Geography

The canal which runs through Colmar.

Colmar is 64 kilometers (40 miles) south-southwest of Strasbourg, at 48.08°N, 7.36°E, on the Lauch River, directly to the east of the Vosges Mountains. It is connected to the Rhine by a canal.

[edit] Climate

Colmar has a sunny microclimate and is the driest city in France, with an annual precipitation of just 550 mm, making it ideal for Alsace wine. It is considered the capital of the Alsatian wine region.

The dryness results from the town's location next to mountains which force clouds arriving from the west to rise, and much of their moisture to condense and fall as precipitation over the higher ground, leaving the air warmed and dried by the time it reaches Colmar.

[edit] Sights

Église Saint-Martin
Martin Schongauer's "Virgin in a rose-garden" inside the Église des Dominicains
Maison Pfister. The house can easily be spotted in Howl's Moving Castle.
"Little Venice"
Musée Bartholdi

Mostly spared by the destructions of the French Revolution and the wars of 1870-1871, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, the cityscape of old-town Colmar is homogenous and renowned among tourists. The area crossed by canals of the river Lauch, and which formerly served as the butcher's, tanner's and fishmonger's quarter, is now called "little Venice" (la Petite Venise). Colmar's cityscape (and neighbouring Riquewihr's) served for the design of the Japanese animated film Howl's Moving Castle.

[edit] Architectural landmarks

Colmar's secular and religious architectural landmarks reflect eight centuries of Germanic and French architecture and the adaptation of their respective stylistic language to the local customs and building materials (pink and yellow Vosges sandstone, timber framing).

[edit] Secular buildings

  • Maison Adolph - 14th century (German Gothic)
  • Koifhus, also known as Ancienne Douane - 1480 (German Gothic)
  • Maison Pfister - 1537 (German Renaissance).
  • Ancien Corps de garde - 1575 (German Renaissance)
  • Maison des Chevaliers de Saint-Jean - 1608 (German Renaissance)
  • Maison des Têtes - 1609 (German Renaissance)
  • Poêle des laboureurs - 1626 (German Baroque)
  • Ancien Hôpital - 1744 (French Classicism)
  • Tribunal de grande instance - 1771 (French Classicism)
  • Hôtel de ville - 1790 (French Classicism)
  • Théâtre municipal - 1849 (French Neoclassicism)
  • Marché couvert - 1865 (French Neo-Baroque). The city's covered market, built in stone, bricks and cast iron, still serves today.
  • Préfecture - 1866 (French Neo-Baroque)
  • Water tower - 1886. Oldest still preserved water tower in Alsace. Out of use since 1984.
  • Gare SNCF - 1905 (German Neo-Baroque)
  • Cour d'appel - 1906 (German Neo-Baroque)

[edit] Religious buildings

  • Église Saint-Martin - 1234-1365. The largest church of Colmar and one of the largest in Haut-Rhin. Displays some early stained glass windows, several gothic and Renaissance sculptures and altars, a grand baroque organ case. The choir is surrounded by a series of gothic chapels, a unique feature in alsacian churches.
  • Église des Dominicains - 1289-1364. Now disaffected as a church, displays Martin Schongauer's masterwork La Vierge au buisson de roses as well as 14th century stained glass windows and baroque choir stalls.
  • Église Saint-Matthieu - 13th century. Gothic and Renaissance stained glass windows and mural paintings, as well as a wooden and painted ceiling.
  • Chapelle Saint-Pierre - 1742-1750. Classicist chapel of a former Jesuit college.
  • Synagogue - 1843 (Neoclassicism)

[edit] Fountains

  • Fontaine de l'Amiral Bruat - 1864 (Statue by Bartholdi)
  • Fontaine Roeselmann - 1888 (Statue by Bartholdi)
  • Fontaine Schwendi - 1898 (Statue by Bartholdi)

[edit] Monuments

  • Monument du Général Rapp - 1856 (first shown 1855 in Paris. Statue by Bartholdi, his earliest major work)
  • Monument Hirn - 1894 (Statue by Bartholdi)
  • Statue "Les grands soutiens du monde" − 1902 (in the courtyard of the Bartholdi Museum)

[edit] Museums

  • Unterlinden Museum - one of the main museums in Alsace. Displays the Isenheim Altarpiece, a large collection of medieval, Renaissance and baroque Upper-Rhenish paintings and sculptures, archeological artefacts, design and international modern art.
  • Musée Bartholdi - the birthplace of Frédéric Bartholdi show his life and work through paintings, drawings, family objects and furniture as well as numerous plaster, metal and stone sculptures.
  • Musée d'histoire naturelle et d'ethnographie - the zoological and ethnographical museum of Colmar was founded in 1859. Besides a large collection of stuffed animals and artefacts from former French and German colonies in Africa and Polynesia, it also houses a collection of ancient Egyptian items, as well as a section dedicated to the local Jewish community.
  • Musée du jouet - the town's toy museum, founded 1993
  • Musée des usines municipales - industrial and technological museum in a former factory, dedicated to the history of everyday technology.

[edit] Library

The Municipal Library of Colmar (Bibliothèque municipale de Colmar) owns one of the richest collections of incunabula in France, with over 2,300 volumes.[1] This is quite an exceptional number for a city that is neither the main seat of a university, nor of a college, and has its explanation in the disowning of local monasteries, abbeys and convents during the French Revolution and the subsequent gift of their collections to the town.

[edit] Education

Colmar shares the Université de Haute-Alsace with the neighbouring, larger city of Mulhouse. Of the approximately 8,000 students of the UHA, circa 1,500 study at the Institut universitaire de technologie (IUT) Colmar, at the Colmar branch of the Faculté des Sciences et Techniques and at the Unité de Formation et de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire d'Enseignement Professionalisé Supérieur (UFR P.E.P.S.).

[edit] Music

Since 1980, Colmar is home to the international summer festival of classical music Festival de Colmar (also known as Festival international de musique classique de Colmar). In its first version (1980 to 1989), it was placed under the artistic direction of the German conductor Karl Münchinger. Since 1989, it is helmed by the Russian violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov.

[edit] Economy

Colmar: capital of Alsatian wines.
Liebherr in Colmar

Colmar is an affluent city whose primary economic strength lies in the flourishing tourist industry. But it is also the seat of several large companies: Timken (European seat), Liebherr (French seat), Leitz (French seat)...

Every year since 1947, Colmar is host to what is now considered as the biggest annual commercial event as well as the largest festival in Alsace [2], the Foire aux vins d'Alsace (Alsacian wine fair).

[edit] Notable people

The following were born in Colmar:

[edit] Twin towns

Colmar is twinned with:

[edit] Gallery

Old town timber framed houses

Old town timber framed houses

Old town timber framed houses

"Little Venice"

Maison des têtes

Close-up of Maison Pfister

Koifhus - front building

Koifhus - rear building

Law court

Covered market

Water tower

Appellate court

Railway station

Old well, bearing the date "1584"

Fontaine Bruat

Fontaine Schwendi

Monument Hirn

Musée d'Unterlinden

Isenheim Altarpiece inside Musée d'Unterlinden

12m high Statue of Liberty replica

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.colmar.fr/adv/culture/biblio/biblio_municip.htm
  2. ^ History of the Wine fair(French)

[edit] External links

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