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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The house at 16 (formerly Grand-Rue) and 137 rue Gutenberg in Strasbourg dates from the 2nd half of the 18th century. It is part of a remarkable architectural ensemble of this path, once an integral part of the medieval Grand-Rue, split in 1963 after the urban transformations of the Grande-Percée (thirties). Gutenberg Street, officially established in 1962, houses several 18th-century buildings, although some were destroyed during the 1944 bombings and rebuilt in the 1950s. This house, partially preserved, bears witness to the Strasbourg civil heritage of the Ancien Régime, in a neighbourhood marked by major urban changes.

The entrance door to this house has been protected under the Historical Monuments since 1929, by ministerial decree. This architectural detail highlights its heritage interest, in a street whose numbering was reversed after its detachment from the Grand-Rue. The historical context of Gutenberg Street, formerly called Niedere Lange Strass ("long low street") in the 18th century, reveals an ancient distinction between the upper and lower parts of the medieval axis, reflecting a spatial and social organisation characteristic of pre-industrial Strasbourg.

The monument is inserted into an urban environment where medieval history is mixed (place Gutenberg, dedicated to the inventor of printing) and modernity (streets opened during the Grand Percée). Although the house itself is not associated with a specific event or character in the sources, its inscription in the Strasbourg fabric makes it a witness to the architectural and memorial transformations of the city, between preservation and reconstruction. The available data do not specify its original use (bourgeois housing, commerce, etc.), but its style and location suggest a building representative of the affluent habitat of the time.

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