2007-10-01
By Emmanuel TresmontantSet at the foot of the Sundgau hills, 37 km (23 miles) from Basle – whose airport it shares – Mulhouse remains a little-known city. Its historic pedestrianised centre, numerous gardens and wealthy bourgeois villas, symbolising a prosperous industrial past, are nonetheless worth the trip. However, it’s the Cité de l’Automobile, with its 400 extraordinary cars, that makes Mulhouse an absolute must-see! Mulhouse has never really been able to capture the public imagination. And yet, as soon as you step off the TGV Est from Paris (now only 3 hours away), you are struck by the quality of the restoration work carried out in the city centre, as illustrated by the Place de la Réunion with its colourful façades and famous trompe l’œils, its Renaissance-style Town Hall and its Temple Saint-Etienne, renowned for its 14th-century stained-glass windows. Reunited with France only in 1792, Mulhouse has retained a rather austere Calvinistic cachet, as witnessed by its imposing houses that are closer to the architecture of Switzerland than that of Alsace. On the other hand, the “New Quarter” built in 1827 for young industry bosses, was inspired by the arcade of the rue de Rivoli in Paris. On either side of the canal, the workers’ garden cities are also worth a look; built in 1855, they were among the first in Europe. As for the wealthiest houses, they were built on the hill in the Rebberg district.
 Panorama from the Tour d'Europe © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelinFor an exceptional panorama encompassing the entire city, the Vosges and the Black Forest, we would recommend heading to the top of the Tour d’Europe, where you can have lunch while enjoying the view in a restaurant that takes a leisurely hour to revolve around its central axis (the time it takes to have your meal...). European capital of technical museums, Mulhouse – nicknamed “the town of one hundred chimneys” in the late 18th century – boasts a first-class industrial heritage, with dream cars, a unique railway collection, a Museum of Fabric Printing and a Museum of Electric Energy… But, with the PSA Peugeot Citroën plant, it also has the biggest mechanical engineering and metallurgical centre in Europe: 320 ha (790 acres), 400,000 vehicles per year and 10,500 employees, making this site the number one employer in Alsace. The world’s biggest Automobile MuseumEven if you are no great car fan, the collection of Fritz and Hans Schlumpf is definitely worth a visit at least once in a lifetime – its 437 cars can be considered as 20th-century works of art! Works by engineers and manufacturers with a real passion, these icons are a hymn to the beauty of shapes and engines, to power, energy, and speed, but also to unbridled imagination...Cité de l'Automobile: the suspended cars
© E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin The Cité de l’Automobile is accessed via a footbridge leading to a rectangular atrium made of wood, glass and steel, and adorned with suspended cars… You then enter a building where images and film clips are projected onto the walls. The layout is organised by theme. The rooms of the Motorcar Masterpieces section are dedicated to the most luxurious cars of the 1930s, including the magnificent 1936 Bugatti Royales built by Ettore and Jean Bugatti, which were at the root of the Schlumpf brothers’ passion for the automobile… Another exhibition, presented in a hushed atmosphere (subdued lighting, club chairs, etc), is devoted to prestige Benz and Bugatti engines. As for the Motor Racing section, it covers the evolution of racing cars since the early 20th century. Lastly, The Motorcar Experience section traces the history of the automobile from 1878 to the present day. The cars are displayed in an old 19th century mill, lit by 800 lampposts identical to those on the Pont Alexandre III bridge in Paris. The collection is divided into three separate parts. The first gathers together the “Forerunners” (Panhard, Peugeot, De Dion and Benz) and covers the period from 1895 to 1918. The second one, “The Classics”, corresponds to the period from 1918-1938, symbolised by the merger of the two giants, Mercedes and Benz: this is the age of the “supercars”, such as the 1924 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that belonged to Charlie Chaplin. The third represents the “Modern Cars” (from 1945), an era marked by the appearance of lighter, popular cars. ../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-0.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-1.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-2.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-3.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-4.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-5.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-6.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-7.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-8.jpg../../tpl/mag6/art20071001/img/diaporama-cite-auto-9.jpg © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Mercedes-Benz © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Mercedes-Benz © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Delahaye © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Bugatti © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Bugatti © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Bugatti © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin © E. Tresmontant/ViaMichelin Bugatti engine Practical informationCité de l’Automobile – Musée National – Collection Schlumpf 192, avenue de Colmar BP 1096 68 051 Mulhouse Tel: 03 89 33 23 21 / 23 The museum is open 7 days a week (except 25th December). Admission: €10.50 Access: A35 and A36 motorways, exit N17 Mulhouse Dornach. Trams stop at the Musée de l’Automobile station. Tourist Office: 9, avenue Foch 68100 Mulhouse Tel: 03 89 35 48 48 |
