Palais universitaire

The Palais universitaire stands at 9 Place de l'Université in the University Quarter of Strasbourg, in the Grand Est region of France. It was built between 1879 and 1884 as the main building of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität, which the German Empire refounded in 1872 after annexing Alsace-Lorraine. The architect Otto Warth designed it in the Italian Renaissance manner, with a symmetrical sandstone facade, a central pavilion with a dome and a monumental stair, and sculpted decoration of allegorical figures and portraits. The university has older origins: it grew from the Protestant gymnasium founded in 1538 by Johannes Sturm, which became an academy in 1566 and a university in 1621, and it later counted Goethe, Pasteur, Marc Bloch and Albert Schweitzer among its students and teachers. The building and its surrounding university district, with the Botanical Garden and the observatory, form part of the Neustadt extension inscribed by UNESCO in 2017. After 1918 the university became French again and was moved to Clermont-Ferrand in 1939 and 1940, before the Germans reopened it under the occupation, and the building still serves the University of Strasbourg for teaching and ceremonies. Its large hall and staircase are used for official events, while the facade looks over a square that is a pleasant part of the walk between the Neustadt and the Botanical Garden. The exterior is open at any time, and the interior is normally accessible only on university days or during public events. Restoration has been carried out to maintain the stone and interior decoration. The Palais is the centrepiece of a campus planned as a complete scientific quarter, laid out to give the new German university the facilities of a major institution, and it shows the strong investment that the Empire made in Strasbourg's academic life after 1872. The surrounding streets contain further university buildings, institutes and clinics of the same period, which form a recognisable ensemble.