Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg
Interesting facts
- In 1794 radical revolutionaries planned to pull down the spire as an insult to equality; citizens saved it by crowning it with a giant tin Phrygian cap.
- During the Revolution, 215 statues around the portals were smashed with hammers, while the central tympanum survived under planks painted with the revolutionary motto.
- The celestial globe on the astronomical clock turns once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds, showing the 1,022 stars catalogued by Ptolemy.
- The cathedral's first astronomical clock, installed around 1352, featured three mechanical kings who bowed before the infant Jesus at noon.
- In the Second World War the stained glass was packed into 74 cases and hidden in a salt mine near Heilbronn, then returned by the US Monuments Men.
- In 1941 General Leclerc swore the Oath of Kufra, vowing not to lay down his arms until French colours flew again on Strasbourg Cathedral.
- After cracks appeared in 1903, the foundations beneath the spire were rebuilt in concrete in a project that ran from 1915 to 1926.
- The great organ, recorded as early as 1260, has a moving figure of Samson prising open a lion's jaws hanging beneath it.
- Fourteen tapestries of the life of the Virgin, ordered by Cardinal Richelieu for Notre-Dame de Paris, were bought by the cathedral in 1739 and hang in the nave during Advent.
- When Alsace became German in 1871, a plan to finally build the second tower was coldly received by locals, who saw it as a symbol of occupation.
Why it is worth it
Strasbourg's cathedral is a building of one tower, and that asymmetry is its signature. The west front was begun in 1277, with Erwin von Steinbach credited as master builder until his death in 1318, and it was planned with two spires. Only the north one was ever built: an octagonal tower and openwork spire by Ulrich Ensingen and Johannes Hültz, finished in 1439. At 142 metres it made the cathedral the tallest building in the world from 1647 until 1874, and it is still the tallest structure surviving entirely from the Middle Ages. The pink-brown Vosges sandstone gives the whole building its warm colour, and the spire is visible across the Alsace plain from the Vosges and from the Black Forest across the Rhine.
Stand in front of the west facade first. It is a screen of stone strings, slender columns and gables laid over the wall behind, with three portals below, the right one showing the Last Judgement with the wise and foolish virgins, and a rayonnant rose window 14 metres across above. Inside, the building reveals its long history: the crypt and parts of the east end are still Romanesque, while the nave is Gothic. Two works in the south transept stand out. The Pillar of the Angels, from around the 1220s, carries tiers of sculpted angels and evangelists around a single column. Beside it is the astronomical clock, whose present mechanism was built by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué between 1837 and 1842 inside an earlier case; every day at 12:30 its figures move, with the apostles passing before Christ and the ages of life passing before Death. Look also for the pulpit of 1485 designed by Hans Hammer, where a small stone dog lies on the stair rail.
The climb is the other half of the visit: a spiral staircase of 332 steps leads to the platform at 66 metres, at the foot of the spire, with a view over the rooftops of the old town to the Vosges and the Black Forest. Much of the original sculpture, including pieces smashed or replaced after the French Revolution, is now in the nearby Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame, run by the foundation that has looked after the cathedral since at least 1224. The cathedral and the Grande Île, the island at the heart of Strasbourg, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Getting there
The cathedral stands on Place de la Cathédrale in the centre of Strasbourg, about 0.5 km from the heart of the Grande Île. Strasbourg Airport (SXB) is 10.3 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg, also known as Strasbourg Minster, is a Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is widely considered to be among the finest examples of Rayonnant Gothic architecture. Architect Erwin von Steinbach is credited for major contributions from 1277 to his death in 1318, and beyond through his son Johannes von Steinbach, and his grandson Gerlach von Steinbach, who succeeded him as chief architects. The Steinbachs' plans for the completion of the cathedral were not followed through by the chief architects who took over after them, and instead of the originally envisioned two spires, a single, octagonal tower with an elongated, octagonal crowning was built on the northern side of the west facade by master Ulrich Ensingen and his successor, Johannes Hültz. The construction of the cathedral, which had started in the year 1015 and had been relaunched in 1190, was finished in 1439.
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