Maison Pfister

The Maison Pfister is one of the best-known houses in Colmar. It stands in the old town of Colmar, in Alsace, where canals and half-timbered streets make the whole centre worth a slow walk. The house stands on a corner of the Rue des Marchands, in the pedestrian centre, and it is a private residence, so it can only be admired from the street.

It was built in 1537 for Ludwig Scherer, a hatter who had come from Besançon and had grown rich in Colmar, and he wanted a house that would show his success. The result is a particularly good example of Alsatian Renaissance architecture, a style in which the half-timbered building tradition of the Rhine meets the decorative forms of Italy, brought north by travelling craftsmen and printed pattern books. The house later took the name of the Pfister family, who owned it in the nineteenth century and restored it. Its façade is built on a stone ground floor with upper floors of timber and plaster, and the features that draw the eye are the polygonal oriel window at the corner, which projects over the street on a stone base and is topped with a pointed roof, and the carved wooden gallery with its balustrade, which runs along the upper floor of the inner courtyard and is visible through the entrance.

The painted decoration is the other highlight. The walls between the windows carry paintings in warm tones, showing scenes from the Bible and portraits of Roman emperors, a popular subject in the Renaissance that reflected the humanist interests of the owners. The paintings have been renewed more than once, and their present look is partly a work of restoration, and the attribution of the original designs is uncertain. The combination of the carved wood, the stone and the colours makes the house a compact showcase of the craft traditions of the period.

There is no entrance fee, since you simply look at the façade, and the street is always open. Spend a few minutes looking at the details, from the carved brackets and inscriptions to the painted figures, and if the light is good in the morning or the afternoon, the colours stand out well. The house forms part of a walk through the old town, with the Maison des Têtes, a house of 1609 whose façade is covered with carved faces, the Koïfhus, the old customs house, the Collégiale Saint-Martin, the quarter of Little Venice and the Unterlinden Museum, where the Isenheim Altarpiece is displayed, within a few minutes of each other.

The Maison Pfister suits photographers, architecture lovers and day-trippers.