The benefits of water inspire architects with new equipment in the cities of Strasbourg and Reims.
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In 2015, the Town Hall of Strasbourg made known that it was unable to restore its municipal baths. The Strasbourg did not appreciate. Small seaside city nestled by the Rhine in the Neustadt district, this remnant of the German period of the city is not just part of its architectural heritage: it constitutes for its inhabitants a source of pride and an object of affection. It is customary to say that this is where all the Strasbourg learned to swim.
from a great sanitary and social project that the German Empire had deployed on its territory, this beautiful equipment whose construction spread between 1905 and 1908 is the work of Fritz Beblo (1872-1947), the chief architect of the city of the time. Combining a certain technical modernity (it was designed in reinforced concrete) and an architectural eclecticism that draws both in antiquity and in the neorégionist repertoire, then brought together public showers, two swimming pools, Roman baths and various spaces of sociability .
Proposed volumes, distributed around a circular entrance hall, house an ornamental abundance where the influence of the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau German): walls and ceilings sculpted in a thousand ways, multitude of colonnades and Statues, Colorful tile and refined wall paintings, cabins and furniture in varnished wood, brass faucets with vegetable shapes, stained glass to animal motifs …
In 2015, the fear was strong to see the privatized place or even transformed into a luxury hotel as had come from being, in Paris, the Pool Molitor. A collective was formed to defend it, a petition circulated, the media took over, and the town hall retroceded and reunited, in partnership with the Eurométropole, the 40 million euros necessary for the operation.
Inventory of historical monuments Since 2000, the municipal baths were ranked in 2017. The work started the following year and continued until the end of 2021. Implementation by the François Agency Chatillon, Chief Architect of Historic Monuments, Restoration has been made in great respect for architecture, colors, original materials and with some pragmatism made necessary by setting the equipment – the Energy invoice would have been reduced by 40% and the water consumption of bathers of 80% – and the evolution of uses.
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