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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

Masson-Wald House, located in Fraize in the Vosges, is an iconic building built in the first half of the 18th century. It illustrates urban bourgeois architecture, rare in the Hautes Vosges, and bears witness to the activity of its owners, a line of surgeons-herborists. Its history was marked by partial changes in 1812, as evidenced by the lintel of the west gate, and by major works between 1836 and 1856, reflecting its architectural and functional evolution.

A former representative of rural therapeutics of the 18th and 19th centuries, the house housed a collection of pharmacy pots, made of blown or moulded glass, classified as objects. Some were labeled with engravings, others were from the Military Training Hospital. This medical heritage, combined with its status as a bourgeois house, earned it an inscription in historical monuments by order of 22 September 1995.

After the donation of Hélène Wald in 1994, the house was renovated and inaugurated in 2006. Today it hosts a crèche, a municipal library and a basement exhibition space, perpetuating its central role in local life. Its inscription in the heritage protects both its architecture and its heritage linked to traditional medicine.

Masson-Wald House is also distinguished by its urban type, exceptional in this rural area, explained by the prosperous activity of its former occupants. Its lintel dated 1812 and the transformations of the mid-19th century underline its adaptation to successive needs, while preserving original elements of the 18th century. This dual heritage, architectural and medical, makes it a unique monument in the Vosges.

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