University Palace, Strasbourg

When you visit the areas of the University Palace that is open to the public, you will surely wish that you could be a student here in this marvelous mixture of ancient and modern buildings.

The University, which is the largest in France, was founded in 1538 by Johannes Strum, a German educator who was responsible for establishing the German Gymnasium (the equivalent of a high school) in Alsace. The teachings in the Gymnasium were based on Lutheran Humanism.

The Gymnasium became a university in 1621 and ten years later it was raised to the status of Royal University. After the French Revolution most of the teachers were French and the curriculum was based on French university education.

These teachers fled during the Franco-Prussian War and in 1870 German teachers were installed and the university was reopened under the name of Kaiser Wilhelm. During the German rule the university was expanded many times to show off the superior German culture as opposed to the French.

In 1918 most of the German teachers left when Alsace was returned to France. During the 2nd World War the university was transferred to Clermont-Ferrand and the building briefly became the Reichsuniversität Strasburg before being restored to France in 1944.

In 1970 it was divided into three independent faculties: Louis Pasteur University, Marc Bloch University and Robert Schuman University. They remained separate until 2009 when they were reunited.