Panoramic views from the Dam terraces

Here you find yourself at the crossroads of ancient and modern. Behind you, you’ll find a contemporary building facing the former Sainte-Marguerite prison. And yet, the two buildings are joined as one to form the headquarters of the National Institute of public service, known as INSP. In case you don’t know what this is, it’s the institution created in 2022 to replace the National School of Administration. But what interests us here is the story behind these walls. If you could travel back in time, you’d find yourself on marshland, on the site of a convent. Fast forward in time, and you’d see the convent transformed into a commandery, an establishment run by a religious and military order. You’d then come across a small hospital specializing in the treatment of syphilis, and eventually, you’d be on the site of the Sainte-Marguerite prison. The latter was built in 1734 on the ruins of the former Saint-Jean commandery, to replace the run-down medieval prisons then housed in the towers of the covered bridges. It closed in 1988, when the decision was made to move the prisons out of the cities, and it was transformed to house the National School of Administration, better known as ENA, which trained the French political elite. Archeological excavations carried out during this last restructuring uncovered numerous artifacts indicative of early Gallo-Roman presence, as well as the foundations of the 12th-century Trinitarian convent, and even pilings dating back to the early Middle Ages, suggesting port activity. If you look the other way, you’ll see the much more recent, glass-fronted Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. It houses a major collection of paintings, sculptures, sketches, photographs and drawings by leading artists from 1870 to the present day. Time passes, life evolves, but traces of the past and of all those who lived here before us remain, buried right beneath our feet. Wouldn’t hurt to pause and think about this every once in a while.