History of the Building: Strasbourg

The European Parliamentary Association was created on 6 July 1983 at the headquarters' of the European Parliament - rue Robert Schuman, Strasbourg. It moved to its present day premises (76 allée de la Robertsau) on 25 May 1989. The EPA occupies 2 floors of this beautiful Art Nouveau building: the ground floor and the basement.

This building also houses the European Audiovisual Observatory.

HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
76, allée de la Robertsau - Strasbourg
(Extract from the Dictionary of Historic Monuments)

In 1899, the Strasbourg architects, BERNINGER and KRAFFT designed a house for Louis Oscar SCHUTZENBERGER; the house combines aspects of an Italian villa - overlapping low-level roof - with organically inspired, sculptured and forged decoration and a great purity of lines, founded on similar repeated motifs; the use of luminous Savonnières stone for the two main facades accentuates further still its southern character.

The house has been entirely preserved; a fence including a monumental gate with a pedestrian door is located in front of the house, wrought ironwork with symmetrical lines decorates each of the three leaves. Original outbuildings also form part of the house: there are garages to the rear and, on the side, a brick caretaker's house resembles a small castle. Two outstretched wings, one situated perpendicularly to the avenue, extend the façade of the wing parallel to the road. The two levels have windows of a similar size in a basket-handle arch; their rear voussoir ends in a 'comma', as do the sills; a pseudo-pediment sculptured with bouquets of fleur-de-lis surmounts most of windows.

At the northern extremity of the façade, a large terrace provides access to the garden. Symmetrically, the western angle of the house forms a turret that is further accentuated by an additional storey; in this section, the second storey has a large bay window with four lancets preceded by a balcony and, on the angle, a rectangular oriel window.

The elevation, of a similar height, comprises a three-section overhang on the lower storey; the entry gate located at the southern extremity of this façade includes a covered oriel on the terrace; the sobriety of the rear-voussoir emphasises the ironwork casement, which imitates the work on the fence.

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