Different types of Alsace Traditional Properties
There has been and there remains today a strong Germanic influence on the architecture found in the Alsace region of France. Alsace house types and the materials used can be categorized in the wide German «pan de bois» (half-timbering) architectural family. This architectural family uses many local symbols and decorations. These symbols appear on porches, doors and on the pieces of wood used to make the half-timbered walls.
These Alsace houses are foremost located in the Vosges department, obviously close to Alsatian vineyards. They generally are quite luxurious properties predominantly built before the 17th century. Fewer examples of these properties are found today in the region, only those that survived the devastation of local wars.
The ground floor is often made of stone while the upper floors are half timbered. The cellars in these Alsatian houses are often huge and ideal to store wine. The doors of these wine warehouses are also adapted, being wide and easily accessible from the outside of the house. The courtyard is generally closed.
The owners of these houses were generally well-off, some of them even fitting the house with a corbelling structure (see image below).
Corbelling refers to a technique using a piece of wood (in our case) or stone jutting out of a wall to carry the superincumbent weight of the wall or parapet. This creates extra room for the upper floors. This is an expensive construction technique and occured mainly in this area of France.
This technique has been used since Neolithic times (around 3,000 BC), this demonstrates the importance of traditional building techniques in Alsace.
- Alsace Renaissance houses:
These Alsace houses were built between the 16th and 17th centuries. They use the corbelling technique, each floor’s dimensions exceeding the dimension of the previous floor. A wide roof protects the house and thus a balcony is often created just under the roof. Windows are of small dimensions, while beams are often exposed.
- Alsace 18th century houses:
This is really the most typical Alsace house type. It is obviously half-timbered, using decoratively shaped and crafted pieces of wood. Numerous windows of small dimensions appear on the exterior walls. Suprisingly, these houses can easily be deconstructed and built again somewhere else. This can be easily explained by the history of this French region: throughout history, a great part of Alsace was annually flooded by the Rhine river. Half-timbered houses were easy to move and fleeing the flood was then possible. It was not unheard of to take one day to move a house and then take one day to rebuild it in a new location.
The house type described above should not be considered as the only house type found in Alsace. In this French region there are many local variations with almost one house type per village. These Alsatian houses display slight variations between different locations within this French region. However all varieties of this traditional Alsace houses share the following features: a warm and welcoming accommodation and a decorative exterior often painted and decorated with symbols.