Cloître à l’architecture gothique
du musée d’Unterlinden, XIIIe siècle
Colmar, musée d'Unterlinden.
Photo : O. Zimmermann

THE CLOISTER

Museum history

The Unterlinden Museum in Colmar boasts one of the highest attendance figures among all regional fine arts museums in France (200,000 visitors annually). The museum has been managed for more than 150 years by the Société Schongauer, which enjoys both financial and administrative independence, but it also has the status of a “Musée de France”, overseen by the Direction des Musées de France.

The museum’s collections are housed on the site of a former convent founded by a Dominican order in the 13th century which is also a fine example of Gothic architecture. Abandoned by the cloistered nuns during the Revolution, the buildings gradually fell into disrepair and were used as military barracks until the mid-19th century.

Several events contributed to the birth of the museum: the founding of the Société Schongauer and the inception by Louis Hugot of a print collection in 1847, and the discovery of a Gallo-Roman mosaic at Bergheim in 1848 which was moved to the Unterlinden chapel. Beginning in 1852, works of religious art rescued from revolutionary forces who had wished to destroy all property belonging to the Catholic Church were transferred to the former Dominican convent. For these reasons, the premises were saved from demolition and the museum opened

Architecture of the former convent

The Unterlinden convent may be considered as a seminal exemplar that influenced all monastic architecture in the Upper Rhine region. Having retained a great deal of their medieval character, the convent buildings nevertheless underwent numerous alterations due to its turbulent history.

As Saint Dominic had never laid down rules for the architecture of monastic buildings, Dominican convents generally follow the traditional approach used by Benedictine orders: the buildings are grouped around a cloister, which serves as the focal element. This is an architecture embodying the vow of poverty taken by members of religious orders through an emphasis on pure forms.

The oldest building is situated at the west end of the site, in the same location as the original residence of the founders of the convent, Agnès de Mittelnheim and Agnès de Hergheim. This building would later house the refectory and subsequently the meeting hall, where Rhenish sculpture and domestic altarpieces are now displayed. The north wing, built at a later date, consisted of the wine cellars, both on the ground floor and underground, with additional sleeping quarters in the dorter on the first floor. In the 18th century, a half-timbered edifice was added (currently the museum entrance), which housed the new kitchen and the recreation room.

The chapel was built between 1262 and 1269. It consists of a vaulted nave with four bays and a vaulted choir with seven bays capped by a polygonal apse, a shape which entered widespread use in Alsace during the 13th century. Today it is home to the Isenheim Altarpiece.

The cloister was built after the chapel, during the second half of the 13th century. It consists of four vaulted galleries forming a nearly perfect square that open onto a courtyard. In the 18th century, an upper storey was built over the cloister to provide more space for cells. The cloister served a functional purpose, as it connected the different buildings and the chapel, but also fulfilled spiritual and liturgical aims as a place of meditation, prayer and procession.