La salle du café de l’auberge « À la Couronne Verte »

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

Barembach is mentioned for the first time in the 10th century; this village then belonged to the rich Benedictine abbey of Altorf. The parish of Barembach is the mother church of several villages in this part of the Vallée de la Bruche. Attached to the department of the Vosges in 1795 then in 1871 to the department of Bas-Rhin, Barembach suffered four years later a dramatic fire. Almost the entire village would be rebuilt. During the First World War, another tragic event takes place there: German soldiers, thirsting for revenge following the first French atrocities, want the annihilation of the village. They hold the men locked in the church and place their cannons all around the village. The inhabitants then make a vow to raise a statue of the Virgin if she delivers them from the enemy's yoke. In 1922, the Grotto of Lourdes was erected at the place called Haute-Roche, visible from the rue du Presbytère where the inn 'A la Couronne verte. A la Couronne verte', or Café Walter, as it was long nicknamed after the surname of its owners, is located, merges with the history of three conflicts: at each generation, from 1870 to 1940, the owners had to face the humiliations and bullying of the German occupier. One could even go so far as to summarize that this establishment is evidence of a French tropism. What is subtly shown by the paintings in the café room painted by Camille Braun (1878-1943), brother of the first licensee, painter-decorator in civilian life and soldier-surveyor during the First World War.

Description

The current building of the inn is simple. The part on the left, with a stable door and another grain-store door, corresponded to agricultural outbuildings before 1940. The grain-store gave access to a ballroom that disappeared in a first fire in the 1950s. This door is today, and since 1996, date of a second fire, merely a passage giving access to the rear of the dwelling. An inner entrance vestibule of timber and glass, to serve as a 'buffer' zone and limit heat loss, has been preserved. Trompe-l'oeil paintings of false marbles and false wood are already present there. Varnished woodwork runs in the vestibule and continues into the café room, along three walls. The latter, of about twenty m², presents a timber floor, except on the counter side, corridor and adjoining rear room. The timber furniture is in part original: tables, bench, clothes hook. The room today accommodates a contemporary timber bar counter structuring the counter and allowing its lighting. It is dated after the 1996 fire. This 'delimits' the old part of this café room from the more modern part, with a decor painted by Camille Braun (1878-1943). The whole was executed on a water-based render. This work testifies at first sight to a mastery of trompe-l'oeil: the techniques of false marble, false wood and sky are perfectly executed. They take up themes dear to the period, but also at the heart of decorative tradition: the seasons. Thus, on entering the café, on the left wall, to the west, one notes two series of couples in a rectangle, perfectly reproducing the division of the wall into widths. They are framed on either side by landscapes in square pictures. These first two couples represent Winter then Autumn. Opposite, on the east wall, one reads the following scenes, from left to right, and in a way symmetrical to the west wall: two landscapes in two square frames framing two other series of couples. The latter form the remaining allegories: Summer then Spring. A sky overlooks the room giving a naive and certainly singular opening to the whole ensemble. However, subtly, in the clothing particularly of the young women illustrating the seasons, Camille Braun slips here and there the colours of his family's political attachment: that to French Alsace.