Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Dissler House is a bourgeois house built between 1609 and 1610 in Riquewihr, Upper Rhine. It is distinguished by its sandstone façade, its pinged gable with volutes, and an oriel richly carved with Renaissance motifs (human heads, animals, fruits, leathers). The building, typical of the Alsatian architecture of the time, also incorporates defensive elements like an egg-eye inspired by cannons.

The house was built for Peter Muller, a winemaker, hotelier of the Au Cerf Inn, and mayor of Riquewihr in 1619, as well as for his wife Ursula Gunther. Their initials (P M, V G) and the date 1610 appear on the gilding page, while the wooded coat of arms and a damaged portrait of Peter Muller are visible there. The assignment of the project to architect Heinrich Schickhardt, known for his achievements in Riquewihr, is plausible because of the stylistic similarities with other local houses.

The interior preserves remarkable elements: a wooden screw staircase, a vestibule with a false fireplace dating from 1617, and a room with antiquisant doors with columns. The courtyard is home to wood-paned outbuildings (1609), including an extended yard in 1972, and a adjoining well dated 1556. Ranked a historic monument in 1964 (facades and roofs) after a first inscription in 1930 (inside), the house has been called Dissler since the beginning of the 20th century.

Today, private property, it hosts a trade of antiques. Its state of conservation and its decorations make it an exceptional witness to the opulence of Alsatian urban elites in the early seventeenth century, mixing Renaissance influences and local traditions.

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