Timeline

Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The house at 18 rue du Général-de-Gaulle in Riquewihr is an emblematic building of the Renaissance Alsatian civil architecture. Built in the 2nd half of the 16th century, it combines sandstone on the ground floor with a panel of oak wood on the first floor, with carved motifs (curle chaise, acanthe leaves) and an adorned cornel post. The building retains a grape press dating from 1710 and 1766, as well as an 18th century wooden staircase. The street façade and roof have been protected since 1960.

The house was rebuilt in 1595 for the cooper Hans Binder, whose initials, emblem and vintage are engraved on a door on the ground floor. Originally, the cooperage shop was probably opened by a door in the middle of a hanger now walled. An adjacent building, perhaps dating from the 17th century, features old windows (including a triplet) and a second floor in a wooden panel. In the 19th century, the crepi masked the half-timbers, leading to the possible disappearance of carved chambranles.

The building illustrates the wine and handicraft activities of Riquewihr, a prosperous medieval village thanks to the wine trade. The presence of a wine harvester with press and an old cooperage emphasises its link with wine production, an economic pillar of Alsace during the Renaissance. The house, typical of the bourgeois houses of the period, combines residential, commercial and agricultural functions.

The inscription to the historic monuments in 1960 is about the facade on street and the roof, thus preserving a rare testimony of the handicrafts and the Alsatian habitat of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The interior elements (stairs, vaulted cellar) and exterior elements (sculpted crows, wood panel) reflect remarkable architectural know-how, despite subsequent transformations (creature, expansion of windows).

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