National University Library of Strasbourg
Neo-Renaissance research library rebuilt from a war-burned collection, holding millions of volumes and rare manuscripts.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the National University Library of Strasbourg opens on the night of August 24, 1870, when Prussian shells burned the Temple-Neuf church and destroyed the city's medieval library, including the illustrated Hortus Deliciarum. It follows librarian Karl August Barack's appeal for donations weeks later, which brought tens of thousands of volumes from libraries and even the German emperor himself, and the honey-stone domed building that architects August Hartel and Skjold Neckelmann raised to house the rebuilt collection. Look up at the facade's carved figures of Art and Science, worked around the names of the German scholars the building was built to honor.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Église du Temple-Neuf
Neo-Romanesque Protestant church in pink sandstone, rebuilt after an 1870 wartime fire destroyed its medieval predecessor.
Palais Universitaire | Université de Strasbourg
Neo-Renaissance stone palace crowned with thirty-six carved statues of scientists and thinkers.
Strasbourg Museum of Fine Arts
Old Masters collection rebuilt from ashes twice, housed in an eighteenth-century bishop's palace.
Neustadt
Wilhelmine district of imperial squares, grand facades and a university built under German rule.
Palais du Rhin
Neo-Renaissance former imperial palace of pink Vosges sandstone, modeled loosely on Florence's Pitti Palace.
Opéra national du Rhin
Neoclassical theatre facade of surviving pink-sandstone muses fronting an interior rebuilt after wartime fire.