Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Pfister House, located at 11 rue des Marchands in Colmar (formerly Mercière Street), is an emblematic 16th century building. Built in 1537 for the Ludwig Scherer of Besançon, it replaces a medieval house called "red cock". Its architecture combines Rouffach yellow sandstone and wood, with a two-storey oriel and an octagonal turret with a bulb. The frescoes, added in 1577, represent German emperors, coats of arms and biblical scenes attributed to the painter Christian Vacksterffer.

The house changed ownership several times: it belonged to the merchants Johann Jacob Doerner (1790-1830), Charles Macker (from 1830), then to the brothers Pfister (1841-1860), who gave it its current name. Since 1892, it has been owned by the Judlin family, which restored it in 1909. Ranked a historic monument in 1927, it underwent major restorations in 1971 and 2012, preserving its Renaissance decorations and late Gothic structure.

The iconography of the facade combines religious symbols (Four Evangelists, Fathers of the Church) and political (Blansons of Colmar, Empire and Upper Alsace), reflecting the cultural influences of Alsace in the 16th century. Loriel, with its Gothic curvilinear warheads and its wooden gallery, illustrates the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The staircase turret, decorated with painted medallions, highlights the prestige of its sponsors, wealthy merchants of the city.

The building embodies the opulence of the renaissance colmarian elites, when the city, a member of the Alsatian Decapole, thrives through trade and crafts. Its exceptional state of conservation makes it a rare testimony of Alsatian civil architecture, between Gothic tradition and Italianist innovations. The successive restorations (1909, 1971, 2012) preserved its original polychromies and frame.

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