Bary Greenhouse (former Victoria House), University of Strasbourg Botanical Garden

Strasbourg's botanical garden, founded in 1619 within the Academy of Medicine, was ravaged by the Prussian siege of 1870. After Alsace was annexed in 1871, the German empire rebuilt the university; from about 1878 a new garden was laid out in the Neustadt district under the scientific direction of the botanist Anton de Bary (1831-1888). It opened on 26 November 1884 with an arboretum, rock gardens, a botanical school and extensive heated glasshouses.

The architect Hermann Eggert (1844-1920), one of the designers of the Wilhelmine university quarter and the author of the Palais du Rhin, drew up the complex. The pavilion for warm-water plants, built in 1884-1885, was first called the Warmwasserpflanzenhaus and later the Viktoriahaus. On 11 August 1958 a violent hailstorm badly damaged the main glasshouses, whose central dome sheltered the palm house; they were demolished in 1963 to make room for a new botanical institute, built in 1965-1967 under Henri-Jean Maresquelle, and for new glasshouses completed in 1967.

The Victoria house escaped demolition. It received the name Bary Greenhouse during works in the 1980s, followed by a partial renovation in the 1990s; the garden was listed as a historic monument on 7 December 1990 and the greenhouse itself classified on 25 March 1993. Closed to the public in 2009, it no longer holds plants. Selected in 2026 by the Mission Patrimoine, it benefits from a Fondation du patrimoine appeal, with works planned for 2027 to 2029.

The Bary Greenhouse has a dodecagonal plan, with twelve glazed faces that university documentation likens to a well of light. The frame is metal; the base is sandstone, deliberately kept low to retain heat and humidity, according to the magazine Jardins de France. At the centre lies a heated pool 7 metres across, kept between 25 and 30 °C, where the giant water lily's leaves floated. In the original complex the Victoria house was also distinguished by its brick heating chimney, clearly recognisable in old views.

The building now suffers serious disorders. The sandstone base is settling, which distorts the frame; the glazing is cracked, corner stones are broken, metalwork is corroded, the lead paints are deteriorating and the timber is rotting in places. The heating is out of use and the pool leaks. The restoration project provides for repairs to the foundations, replacement of the glazing with a thermally more efficient laminated glass, removal of the lead paint from the frame, reconstruction of the roof and a new heating system.

The house was devoted to the giant Amazonian water lily, called Victoria regia in the garden's documentation, introduced to Europe in the mid-19th century and demanding warm water and abundant light; its leaves reach about 2 metres across according to the local press. Until 2011, according to Jardins de France, mangroves, papyrus and ferns could also be seen there. The pool, cracked during the Second World War and then filled with earth, was put back into service in the partial renovation of the 1990s.

The house no longer contains plants. The garden's tropical collections are now in the 1967 glasshouses: the main tropical house, 12 metres high and kept at 25 °C at minimum, shelters more than 450 species, including palms, banana plants, carnivorous plants and the sensitive plant. The restoration project aims to reinstate Victoria cultivation in the Bary house.

The Bary Greenhouse has been closed since 2009 and cannot be visited, but it can be seen from the paths of the botanical garden, on rue Goethe behind the Palais universitaire. The garden, about 3.5 hectares, holds more than 6,000 species; it has the main tropical house, the cold house and a trail of centenarian trees. The Cotad guide mentions free guided tours on the first Sunday of the month.

The visit combines naturally with the imperial Neustadt quarter, where Place de la République and the Palais du Rhin, also by Hermann Eggert, show the scale of the Wilhelmine building programme. It is worth checking the progress of the works before planning a visit around the restoration.