The city is renowned for its well-preserved old town, its numerous architectural landmarks and its museums, among which is the Unterlinden Museum, which houses the Isenheim Altarpiece.
Colmar is located on the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the capital of Alsatian wine (capitale des vins d'Alsace).
History
Imperial City of Colmar
Ville impériale de Colmar(French) Reichsstadt Colmer(German)
Colmar was first mentioned by Charlemagne in his chronicle about Saxon wars.[3] This was the location where the Carolingian Emperor Charles the Fat held a diet in 884.[4] Colmar was granted the status of a free imperial city by Emperor Frederick II in 1226.[3] In 1354 it joined the Décapole city league.[5] The city adopted the Protestant Reformation in 1575, long after the northern neighbours of Strasbourg and Sélestat.[6] During the Thirty Years' War, it was taken by the Swedish army in 1632, which held it for two years. In 1634, the Schoeman family arrived and started the first town library. In 1635, the city's harvest was spoiled by Imperialist forces while the residents shot at them from the walls.[7]
The Colmar Treasure, a hoard of precious objects hidden by Jews during the Black Death, was discovered here in 1863.[13]
Geography
Colmar is 64 kilometres (40 mi) south-southwest of Strasbourg, at 48.08°N, 7.36°E, on the River Lauch, a tributary of the Ill. It is located immediately to the east of the Vosges and connected to the Rhine in the east by a canal.
Colmar has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) but it is significantly modified by the city's location far inland, with cold, dry winters and warm to hot, wetter summers.
The city has a sunny microclimate and is one of the driest cities in France, with an annual precipitation of just 607 mm (23.9 in), 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 forces clouds arriving from the west to rise and much of their moisture to condense and fall over the higher ground, leaving the air warmed and dried by the time it reaches Colmar.
The city therefore has more of a continental climate and winter and summer temperatures can sometimes be the lowest or highest in France.
Comparison of local Meteorological data with other cities in France[16]
Mostly spared from 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. An area that is crossed by canals of the river Lauch (which formerly served as the butcher's, tanner's and fishmonger's quarter) is now called "little Venice" (la Petite Venise).
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 Vosgessandstone, timber framing).
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)
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 an ambulatory opening on a series of Gothic chapels, a unique feature in Alsatian churches.
Église des Dominicains – 1289–1364. Now disaffected as a church, displays Martin Schongauer's masterwork Madonna of the Rose Bower as well as 14th century stained glass windows and baroque choir stalls. The adjacent convent buildings house a section of the municipal library.
Église Saint-Matthieu – 13th century. Gothic and Renaissance stained glass windows and mural paintings, as well as a wooden and painted ceiling.
Couvent des Antonins – 13th century. Disaffected church and convent buildings notable for a richly ornate cloister. Now housing the Unterlinden Museum (see below).
Église Sainte-Catherine – 1371. Disaffected church and convent buildings now used as an assembly hall and festival venue (Salle des Catherinettes).
Chapelle Saint-Pierre – 1742–1750. Classicist chapel of a former Jesuit college.
Synagogue – 1843 (Neoclassicism)
Fountains
Fontaine de l'Amiral Bruat – 1864 (Statue by Bartholdi)
Fontaine Roeselmann – 1888 (Statue by Bartholdi)
Fontaine Schwendi – 1898 (Statue by Bartholdi)
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)
Maison des têtesA replica of The Little Vintner of Colmar by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, given by the town of Colmar to Princeton, its sister city, in 1988
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, archaeological artefacts, design and international modern art.
Musée d'histoire naturelle et d'ethnographie – the zoological and ethnographic museum of Colmar was founded in 1859. Besides a large collection of taxidermied animals, and artefacts from former French and German colonies in Africa and Polynesia, it also houses a collection of ancient Egyptian items.
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.
Choco-Story Colmar - museum presenting the history of chocolate, with regional history displays, the ability to taste different chocolates and artworks made of chocolate[23][24]
Library
The Municipal Library of Colmar (Bibliothèque municipale de Colmar) owns one of the richest collections of incunabula in France, with more than 2,300 volumes.[25] 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 dissolution of local monasteries, abbeys and convents during the French Revolution and the subsequent gift of their collections to the town.
The railway station Gare de Colmar offers connections to Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Besançon, Zürich and several regional destinations. Colmar was also once linked to Freiburg im Breisgau, in Germany and on the other side of the Rhine, by the Freiburg–Colmar international railway. However the railway bridge over the Rhine between Breisach and Neuf-Brisach was destroyed in 1945 and never replaced.
Education
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Colmar shares the Université de Haute-Alsace (Upper Alsace University) with the neighbouring, larger city of Mulhouse. Of the approximately 8,000 students of the UHA, around 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 PEPS).
The École Compleméntaire Pour L'Enseignement Japonaise à Colmar (コルマール補習授業校 Korumāru Hoshū Jugyō Kō), a part-time supplementary Japanese school, is held in Colmar.[26] At one time classes were held at the Centre Cultural de Seijo.[27]
Music
Since 1980, Colmar is home to an international summer festival of classical musicFestival 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.
Economy
Colmar: capital of Alsatian winesLiebherr 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), Capsugel France (A division of Pfizer).
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,[28] the Foire aux vins d'Alsace (Alsacian wine fair).
By 1991 Lycée Seijo, a Japanese boarding high school in Kientzheim, had established a Japanese cultural center. It housed books and printed materials in Japan and hosted lectures and film screenings.[30]
Notable people
Jean RappArmand Joseph Bruat, amiral de FranceAuguste Nefftzer, 1863
Colmar's cityscape (and that of neighbouring Riquewihr) served as inspiration for the design of the Japanese animated film Howl's Moving Castle. Scenes in the anime Is the Order a Rabbit? are also based on this location.[33]
Colmar appears as a map in Day of Defeat: Source set in 1944. Germans and American soldiers try to blow up each other's objectives.[34]
^Helfferich, Tryntje, The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 290.
^Nathan Prefer (2015). Eisenhower's Thorn on the Rhine: The Battles for the Colmar Pocket, 1944-45. Casemate. p. 18.
^Dan P. Silverman (1971). "The Economic Consequences of Annexation: Alsace-Lorraine and Imperial Germany, 1871-1918". Central European History. 4 (1). Cambridge University Press: 34–53. doi:10.1017/S0008938900000431. JSTOR4545591. S2CID146411340.
^H. Patrick Glenn (1974). "The Local Law of Alsace-Lorraine: A Half Century of Survival". The International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 23 (4). Cambridge University Press: 769–790. doi:10.1093/iclqaj/23.4.769. JSTOR758414.
^Iwasaki, Toshio. "Japanese Schools Take Root Overseas." Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry. Japan Economic Foundation (JEF, Kokusai Keizai Kōryū Zaidan), No. 5, 1991. Contributed to Google Books by the JEF. p. 25. "Seijo Gakuen has established a cultural center in the nearby city of Colmar which is used to hold lectures introducing aspects of Japan, to show movies, and to keep books and printed materials oii Japan."
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