Bains Municipaux de Strasbourg

This guide to the Bains Municipaux de Strasbourg follows city architect Fritz Beblo, who set out in 1905 to design every faucet and tile of the bathhouse himself and blew far past the council's budget doing it. You'll hear how marble columns, faience tiles and a Hokusai-inspired stained-glass wave were meant to make working people feel they were entering a temple rather than a municipal chore. It traces the building's opening in 1908 and the years Beblo kept refining it, up to the political turn that followed the First World War. Notice the alcove statues he placed by hand as you move through the corridors.