Welcome to our industrial heritage

Thread, dyes and talent: the textile industry is a regional treasure. Hardly surprising then, that during your stay in Mulhouse, you can take part in a smartphone treasure hunt, following Henriette through the city-centre streets. Are you ready for the textile adventure?

Let’s take a little trip back to the 19th century, an age when the textile industry was in full swing, when the city teemed with workers in need of lodgings and the rich industrialists and their families who wanted to take care of them. And the result was this village of cottages with their little gardens known as “carrés mulhousiens”. And they are still there...

Textiles, an industry in decline? Are you joking? By launching the Alsace Terre textile label, the industry is seeking to display its capacity for technological innovation. The many fine qualities of ‘Made in Alsace’ fabrics make them highly saleable. And highly desirable, too...

A quality label recognising the beautiful city of Mulhouse. However you look at it, Mulhouse is truly a city of art and history. Alsace has its sauerkraut and half-timbered buildings and Mulhouse’s contribution is its unusual industrial, architectural, working and urban heritage. And in Mulhouse, art and history are lived, not just preserved.

What visitor to your home is modern and reliable, has a magnetic and sparky personality, can be relied up to create an atmosphere and, when not there, leaves your home a less warm place?

What is the connection between an old mill in Mulhouse’s Mertzau quarter, a famous luxury car maker and two brothers, whose name is unpronounceable for non-specialists? If you can answer the question, then you must have already heard of the world’s most prestigious car museum. If you don’t know the answer, then a visit is called for!

So what’s this place? An old foundry? Full of students? Do we have to climb upstairs? Is it modern art? Is it normal that I don’t understand anything? Besides, is it meant to be understood... Now that you mention it, that could be absolutely anything.

What’s the difference between fabric and textiles? There isn’t any. Over a number of centuries, the Royal factories at Wesserling made the former for the latter. Although the site is now a museum (or perhaps more accurately a heritage centre), the workers who created the factories’ legacy are not forgotten. And the designers of today are welcomed with open arms.

Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Jean de Gastines, Anne Lacaton, Jean-Philippe Vassal, Duncan Lewis, Potin + Block, Mathieu Poitevin, Pascal Reynaud: the Cité Manifeste is like a mini catalogue of 21st century architecture. A kind of permanent exhibition that people live in.

Try this mathematical problem: a train sets out for Mulhouse at 09.58 and meets 86 other trains while the passengers walk along 8 different platforms. Calculate the average amount of steam necessary to stir tourists’ brains, assuming the weight of the cast iron to be - almost - negligible.

Alsace, a land of revolutions? Not always, but certainly in an industrial sense. Even before 1789, the industrial revolution was under way, driven by the textile industry,with the chemical and engineering industries in its wake. Thread had become a rich tapestry.

Guide. - n. 1) A person who shows the way to others. 2) A spiritual advisor. 3) A marking which directs the positioning of something. 4) A book providing information on a subject or place. Let’s opt for the 1st, who is friendly, full of anecdotes and able to answer questions, especially on the subject of Mulhouse’s industrial past.

Sorry to shatter a childhood dream, but cars don’t grow on trees or in the fields. But Mulhouse can produce them in large numbers, particularly at the PSA Peugeot-Citroën plant and in the factories of many subcontractors. But breeding and training methods remain a closely guarded secret.

The aim: to discover the fabric of life, avoid losing the thread and establish a pattern. The place: the Musée d’impression sur étoffes. Yes, that’s right: you’ll find more than 6 million designs dating from the 18th century to the present day. This place certainly makes a good impression...

See that paper? It’s kids’ stuff. This panoramic landscape really gets around. With this design the writing’s on the ceiling. These dominoes are not child’s play. The walls have ears, but that’s not all. Open your eyes - wallpaper really is "Zuber"!

Mulhouse’s Musée Historique is THE city centre monument. And, most of all, its THE place to take a step back to the time of the Republic of Mulhouse. With a whole host of objects which evoke Mulhouse’s former life between the 16th and 19th centuries. It also houses the Klapperstein (Gossips’ stone) and the statue du Sauvage.