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Architectural heritage
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In the Vosges du
Nord Park there are five different areas each with their
own particular architecture: Pays
de Hanau, Outre-Forêt, the Forest, Alsace
Bossue and the "open country" in the
Pays de Bitche.
In the first two areas, the traditional farm consisted
of a building with a rectangular courtyard :
- The dwelling house was immediately adjacent to the
street; the entrance was from the courtyard.
- The ancillary buildings: stables, cowsheds and sheds,
faced the house.
- The barn was at the bottom of the plot with access to
the kitchen garden and orchard
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A house in Alsace Bossue © SYCOPARC
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According to the records we have, this type of layout
first occurred in the late 15th C (earlier houses were
laid out with all the buildings in a single block) and
by the 18th C, after the reconstruction after the Thirty
Years War, constituted a majority of the farmhouses.
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Layout of a Pays Hanau farm
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In Pays de Hanau, the courtyard was surrounded by a
high perimeter wall and, occasionally, by another building.
Access was through an archway with two doors, one a
carriage gateway, the other for people on foot.
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A village in Outre-Forêt © SYCOPARC
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In Outre Forêt, the houses were often smaller and
the courtyards always visible from the road, shut off
by a fence only. They were exposed timber-frame buildings,
sandstone masonry-work being combined with wooden frames.
The steep roofs were covered in Biberschwantz plain red
tiles.
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Layout of an Outre-Forêt farm
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Internal layout :
The entrance to the house was through the courtyard
(unless the building had some specific function, such
as being an inn).
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Layout of a farm with a courtyard
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In the simplest houses, the entrance (Hussgang) served
the kitchen at the far end, and the Stub which was simultaneously
the living-room, dining-room and bedroom (the beds were
in small alcoves separated by wooden partitions). In
larger houses, the entrance also led to a Kleinstub
on the opposite side to the road. This was not heated
and was often for the grandparents.
The stove, fed from the kitchen, heated the Stub, the
heat from the chimney taking the chill off the first-floor
rooms.
Much the same layout was used in the earlier single-block
farms.
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Decorated stonework from Alsace Bossue
© SYCOPARC
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In Alsace Bossue and Pays de Bitche, the traditional
farm was in a single block, the barn and the cowshed being
attached to the house in a single unit under the same
roof.
The ridge of the roof ran parallel to the road. Between
the building and the road was an unfenced open space up
to 15m wide called a usoir. This was used for farming-related
activities such as storing equipment, stocking manure...
Entrances to the house, the barn and the cowshed all opened
onto the usoir.
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A farm in Pays de Bitche © SYCOPARC
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The buildings were of sandstone blocks rendered with
a red sandstone-coloured lime-based rendering. Decoration
as such was limited to the main facade and consisted
of dressed coin stones and wall-bases, and richly decorated
architraves, unique for each farm and characteristic
of the period in which each house was built.
Here, as in the other areas, thatch was steadily replaced
by 30 cm x 15 cm Biberschwantz (or queue de castor)
round-ended, plain tiles that were hung or nailed.
Layout :
Unlike the above types of farmhouse, the entrance
faced the road and gave access to the main rooms on
the road side and to the "back" rooms, the
kitchen and the Kammer. Small sheds, a bread oven, a
chicken-coop, a pigsty... were usually built onto the
back of the building. …
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Layout of a single block farmhouse
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The Forest area had a mixture of building styles and techniques
based on those described above.
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A farm in the Forest © SYCOPARC
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"The German building styles in the Reserve will be added to the site in due course."
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Architecture