History of Yellow Hill: École de Colline Jaune

Apr 4, 20212 min read

If we should consider a key moment for the development of our region before the actual spurt of investors that are helping to make Yellow Hill an important province once again, we should step back to the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, when Alsace and a big part of Lorraine were ceded to the German Empire. That created an exodus of Frenches and Germans around the new border, helping to develop a new artistic style (Art Nouveau) in different disciplines for our area, with artisans, decorators, painters, sculptors and, mainly, architects.

Most of them studied at St. Peter highschool, where some of those pupils started to share their new vision about how art should react against the academic point of view, where eclecticism and historicism were considered the main focus of 19th century architecture and decoration. Our local architect, Ternat Phillip, was one of the key members of that new movement, with colleagues as Hans Meyer, who designed our village hall and many others. Actually, most of Yellow Hill landmarks are either designed by the École de Colline Jaune (School of Yellow Hill) or were renovated by the group around those years, between the end of 19th century and the start of 20th.

Besides the different examples of their work around every village or town in our area, Ternat keeps Ternat Phillip home as a memorial of his life and in St. Peter we can visit his own museum, considered the best example of what École de Colline Jaune meant for everyone. We really hope the new wave of architects and investors that are developing our region once again are able to help with the second revolution of Yellow Hill, aiming at the future.