The Palais Rohan (Rohan Palace) in Strasbourg is the former residence of the prince-bishops and cardinals of the House of Rohan, an ancient French noble family originally from Brittany. It is a major architectural, historical, and cultural landmark in the city. It was built next to Strasbourg Cathedral in the 1730s, from designs by Robert de Cotte, and is considered a masterpiece of French Baroque architecture. Since its completion in 1742, the palace has hosted a number of French monarchs such as Louis XV, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Joséphine, and Charles X.
Reflecting the history of Strasbourg and of France, the palace has been owned successively by the nobility, the municipality, the monarchy, the state, the university, and the municipality again. Its architectural conception and its iconography were intended to indicate the return of Roman Catholicism to the city, which had been dominated by Protestantism for the previous two centuries. Thus the prelate's apartments face the cathedral, to the north, and many of the statues, reliefs and paintings reflect Catholic dogma.
Since the end of the 19th century the palace has been home to three of Strasbourg's most important museums: the Archaeological Museum (Musée archéologique, basement), the Museum of Decorative Arts (Musée des Arts décoratifs, ground floor) and the Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des Beaux-Arts, first and second floor). The municipal art gallery, Galerie Robert Heitz, in a lateral wing of the palace, is used for temporary exhibitions. The Palais Rohan has been listed since 1920 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.
History
Up to 1871 In 1727, Armand Gaston Maximilien de Rohan, bishop of Strasbourg since 1704 and cardinal since 1712, commissioned the architect Robert de Cotte to design the palace; deCotte provided initial plans the same year. Seven years prior, in 1720, Cardinal deRohan had already charged deCotte with renovation and embellishment works on his castle in Saverne, the predecessor of the current Rohan Castle. DeCotte had also previously designed the Hôtel du grand Doyenné, the first hôtel particulier in Louis XV style built in Strasbourg. The Palais Rohan was built on the site of the former residence of the bishop, the "bishop's demesne", which is recorded since at least 1262. The area itself is near the heart of the ancient Argentoratum, first mentioned in 12BC. Diverse archaeological excavations on the Place du Château, the square facing the palace, have unearthed many remains of the Roman camp.
Building work on the Palais Rohan took place from 1732 until 1742Martin, p. 94. under the supervision of the municipal architect Joseph Massol, who also worked on the Hôtel de Hanau and the Hôtel de Klinglin during the early years of the project. Massol was assisted by the architects Laurent Gourlade and Étienne LeChevalier. The sculptures, including statues as well as reliefs, were provided by Robert Le Lorrain, assisted by Johann August Nahl, Gaspard Pollet, and Laurent Leprince, and the paintings by and . The ébéniste Bernard Kocke and the ironworkers and locksmiths Jean-François Agon and his son Antoine Agon worked on the furnishings of the apartments, while the stucco was the work of the Italians Castelli and Morsegno.Martin, pp. 94–95, 116, 121, 153, 181, 184. A budget of 344,000 French livres had been established for the construction – 200,000 livres lent from the Cathedral chapter (Grand Chapitre) and 144,000 raised as local taxes over a period of twelve years – but the final cost is estimated at one million French livres. The palace is mostly built in yellow sandstone from Wasselonne, with pink sandstone for the less visible parts.
The House of Rohan owned the palace until the French Revolution, when it was confiscated, declared bien national ("state owned"), and finally auctioned off on 8August 1791.Martin, p. 214. Bought by the municipality, it became the new town hall (hôtel deville) the same year, succeeding the Neubau. Much of the furniture and many of the works of art in the Palais were sold, and in 1793 the eight life-sized mural portraits of prince-bishops decorating the Salle des évêques (Bishops' Hall) were destroyed. They were replaced in 1796 by allegories of civic virtues painted by Joseph Melling. Only the portrait of Armand Gaston, the builder of the palace, was later restored to its original place with a 1982 replica of Hyacinthe Rigaud's lost painting. Melling also replaced the overdoor portraits of kings of France, decorating the same room with paintings of vases.Martin, p. 221, note 86.
The Palais Rohan remained the hôtel de ville until 1805. That year, the municipality presented it to Napoleon, who returned the Hôtel deHanau in exchange. Like the palace, the hôtel had been state-owned since the Revolution. The 1805 arrangement proved favourable for the municipality: the maintenance of the Hôtel deHanau was less costly than that of the larger Palais Rohan. It pleased Napoleon, for whom the palace was the more conspicuous display of grandeur. As for the palace, imperial ownership meant renewed splendour. The present to Napoleon was officially accepted by decree on 21January 1806; the interiors were then refurbished by the architect Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine. In the years before the Franco-Prussian War and the return of Alsace to Germany, the Palais Rohan was the property of the French state, which was in turn an empire, a kingdom, a monarchy, a republic, and again an empire.
Since 1871
The year 1871 signified the end of French rule and the beginning of German rule over Alsace, which had until 1681 been linked to Germany through the Holy Roman Empire. Having lost the Franco-Prussian War, France had to cede the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, and Moselle (the territory also known as Alsace-Lorraine, or Elsass-Lothringen in German) to the newly created German Empire. Now under new administration and having lost its residential purpose, the Palais Rohan had to be assigned a new role. Between 1872 and 1884, until the opening of the Palais universitaire, it was used by the newly established Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität, the Imperial German version of the University of Strasbourg, as the seat of the faculties of law, philosophy, and sciences. The palace then served as the university's library until the opening of the National and University Library in 1895. After this, the palace again became the property of the city and was adapted to receive the municipal art collections that were being built up again by director Wilhelm von Bode after their total destruction during the Siege of Strasbourg (see below, Musée des Beaux-Arts). The first section of the new Kunstmuseum der Stadt Strassburg, established in 1898, was inaugurated in 1899.
After the return of Alsace to French rule in 1918, the new director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts and the Musée des Arts décoratifs, Hans Haug (1890–1965), put major efforts into presenting the Palais Rohan as a coherent whole again. Strasbourg suffered during World War II, and on 11August 1944 the palace was damaged by British and American bombs. After the war, restoration measures were soon undertaken under the supervision of the architects Robert Danis (1879–1949) and Bertrand Monnet (1910–1989), but in 1947 a fire broke out and devastated a significant part of the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids: because of the destruction inflicted on the palace, the building had suffered from damp, which was treated with welding torches, and poor handling of these caused the fire.
Rebuilding and refurbishing the palace took until well into the 1950s, with full restoration not completed until the 1990s.Recht, Foessel, Klein, p. 66. In 1989 a large trompe-l'œil fresco depicting the Roman goddess Ceres was rediscovered behind layers of plaster and white paint in the former dining hall, the eastern wing of the Synod Hall (see below, Apartments). It is thought to have been concealed under Napoleonic ownership, and had been forgotten since.Schnitzler, p. 53.
Notable guests
King Louis XV stayed in the palace from 5 to 10October 1744. Maria Josepha of Saxony, Dauphine of France, spent two nights in the palace from 27 to 29January 1747. Queen Marie Antoinette spent her first night on French soil there on 7 to 8May 1770. In 1805, 1806, and 1809 Emperor Napoleon spent several nights in the palace; his wife, Empress Josephine stayed for longer periods, from September 1805 until January 1806 (Battle of Austerlitz), and from May until July 1809 (Battles of Aspern-Essling and of Battle of Wagram).Martin, p. 190.Martin, p. 219.
Napoleon's second wife, Empress Marie Louise, spent her first nights on French soil in the palace, from 22 to 25March 1810; she came from Austria like Marie-Antoinette. Other royal French guests were Charles X, on 7 and 8September 1828, and Louis Philippe I from 18 to 21June 1831.
In the early 20th century, the sculptor Ringel d′Illzach used one of the rooms of the palace as an atelier. After World War II, the first great art exhibition in the palace, "L'Alsace française 1648–1948", was inaugurated on 13June 1948 by Jean de Lattre de Tassigny,Schnitzler, pp. 184–185. one of the chief artisans of the Liberation of Alsace (1944–45).
On 8 May 1985, American President Ronald Reagan dined in the Palace and signed the official Strasbourg guestbook, on the occasion of his visit to the European Parliament. In December 1989, the Palais Rohan hosted the dinner parties of the heads of state of the European Council, including François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher, Giulio Andreotti and Felipe González. Twenty years later, before the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit, it was the site of a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his American counterpart Barack Obama as well as their wives Carla Bruni and Michelle Obama. In the 21st century, the palace was the setting for the official dinner for the 2016 Fed Cup finalists, the gala dinners for the 20th and the 25th anniversary of Eurimages, as well as other festive receptions, since it can be booked for such occasions from the municipality.
Structure The palace is structured around a large and paved courtyard. It has a trapezoidal plan, and the land falls away toward the river Ill. To compensate for the slope, the riverside (southern) façade of the main wing has four floors (including the Mansard roof), while the courtyard (northern) façade has three floors. The half-buried floor corresponds to the basement and now houses the archaeological museum (see below, Museums). The riverside façade is thus both the highest and the widest of the palace. The terrace before it, facing the Quai des Bateliers, is closed at both ends by elaborate wrought-iron gates adorned with the coat of arms of the House of Rohan.Martin, p. 87.
The riverside façade is formed by the main residential bulk and the library wing on the west side, which offers a contrast in shape and design, notably through its single, very large window. The main part of the façade is symmetrically arranged around an avant-corps of four columns with Corinthian capitals. The avant-corps is crowned with a voluminous triangular pediment, again adorned with the coat of arms of the House of Rohan, while the library wing is crowned with a semicircular pediment. That pediment was originally surmounted by two copper statues of angels, now lost.Martin, pp. 87–90. The library wing was not part of the original 1727 plan but was conceived in 1733, after the cardinal bought up and demolished a row of houses on the current Rue de Rohan. The architect, Robert de Cotte, was thus able to distribute the interior spaces of the residential bulk on an even grander and also more practical plan, notably putting the main staircase to the left (east) of the apartment wing instead of the centre.Martin, pp. 51 and 83.