The diamond roof
Glinting green and gold — Alsace's second roof after the collegiate's.
stefano Merli from legnano, italy — CC BY-SA 2.0 · BelPatty86 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · BelPatty86 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · BelPatty86 — CC BY-SA 4.0
A 1354 alliance of ten free imperial Alsatian towns — Colmar included — for mutual defence and coordination directly under the Empire, no princes between. It lasted three centuries until Louis XIV absorbed Alsace — the Koïfhus serving as its rotating parliament hall.
Do not plan on it — the interiors are bare fine-ceilinged halls that gain meaning with occasions (craft fairs, wine markets, concerts). Door open in passing, take five minutes; otherwise exterior and square were the jewel anyway.
Lazarus von Schwendi: a sixteenth-century imperial commander legend credits with bringing the Tokay vine from Hungarian campaigns to Alsace — immortalised by Bartholdi (Colmar's son again) raising the cutting. Historically shaky, and Alsatian 'Tokay Pinot Gris' bore the name centuries until Hungary sued it away — a whole saga in one fountain.
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The Koïfhus is Colmar's oldest public building (1480) and its old economic heart: in the ground hall the trading town's goods were weighed, sealed and taxed, and upstairs met the deputies of the Décapole — the league of ten free Alsatian cities, a miniature parliament of a vanished imperial world. Its diamond-tiled roof of green and gold is Alsace's roofing masterpiece beside the collegiate church's, and its façade with double stair and city crests tells the merchants' pride — the building alive today as an events and exhibitions hall flying flags at its door. It stands where the town's two great streets meet, on the Old Customs square with the Schwendi fountain — a lovely ten-minute crossing point between town heart and Little Venice, completed by a sit at the square's cafés.
Glinting green and gold — Alsace's second roof after the collegiate's.
Meeting hall of the free cities' league — merchant sovereignty of a lost world.
Bartholdi's bronze of the Tokay vine's bringer — on its square.
29 Grand'Rue, 68000 Colmar