The Association’s annual programme covers free, public lectures on the Cathedral, and – for its members – excursions, guided tours and themed travel.
Lectures
The Association’s lecture programme has become, over the years, a valued platform and resource for leading experts on the Cathedral. Whether big-name speakers or rising stars from university departments in France, Germany and Switzerland, many of them use it to give their hearers a preview of ideas and discoveries which have not yet been aired in the specialised journals. Drawn from a broad range of relevant disciplines, they include historians, art historians and archaeologists, as well as theologians, musicologists and others – and their various specialisms were well represented at the scientific colloquy which we organised in March 2015 to mark the Cathedral’s millennium.
Our programme is now defined in close collaboration with the Oeuvre Notre-Dame Foundation. Illustrated talks of 1-1 1/2 hours, question time included, are held every month-or-so from October to June at the Munsterhof, 9 rue des Juifs.
A typically attentive audience at one of the Association’s lectures.
Excursions and tours
Members-only tours, led by specialists, are another important part of our programme. In Strasbourg itself, we organise tours of the Cathedral, the city’s medieval churches, museums, exhibitions, etc. several times a year. Once or twice a year, we have excursions to towns in Alsace or adjacent regions, as well as longer journeys, lasting several days.
During the 2019-2020 season, our Autumn excursion centred on Lorraine. We first visited Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, one of the most beautiful Flamboyant Gothic chuches in France, then Nancy for a tour of the Baroque sector, planned and built at Stanislas’ command, and the Art Nouveau heritage left by Gallé and Majorelle. Our continuing programme of (re-)discovering the artistic treasures of Strasbourg included presentations of the Maison Kammerzell, which everyone knows but may not know much about, the Mediaeval architectural drawings now in the Oeuvre Notre-Dame museum, and the 14 tapestries (scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary) which are hung in the cathedral during Advent. With the Covid crisis we had to cancel all our other planned events. Activites will be resumed when conditions and procedures allow.
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Visit of the Cathedral’s tower.