Museums, galleries and heritage in Haut-Rhin

Haut-Rhin's cultural landscape reflects three overlapping histories: the wine villages of the Alsace route, the 19th-century industrial boom of Mulhouse, and the front-line memory of two world wars. In Colmar, the Musée Unterlinden occupies a former Dominican convent and holds one of Alsace's most significant fine art and archaeology collections, spanning the Middle Ages to the present.

Mulhouse, once a major textile-producing city, retains this identity through the Musée Historique de Mulhouse, housed in the town hall on Place de la Réunion, and through the Musée des Beaux-Arts, part of the wider Musées Mulhouse Sud Alsace network. Further north, the Parc de Wesserling - Écomusée Textile in Husseren-Wesserling preserves the largest textile heritage park in Alsace, a listed historic monument.

The department's role in 20th-century conflict is documented at the Historial franco-allemand du Hartmannswillerkopf in Wattwiller, built on the site of one of the deadliest First World War battlegrounds, and at the Musée Mémorial des combats de la Poche de Colmar in Turckheim, which recounts the liberation of Alsace in the winter of 1944-45.

Colmar's old town concentrates several of the department's key sites within walking distance: the Musée Bartholdi, set in the sculptor's birth house, sits near the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle et d'Ethnographie de Colmar, whose collections of roughly 135,000 specimens trace back to a learned society founded in 1859.

Mulhouse's post-industrial fabric now hosts a cluster of contemporary art venues, including La Kunsthalle Mulhouse and Le Séchoir Mulhouse, alongside smaller commercial spaces such as Orlinda Gallery and Galerie Concorde.

The wine villages along the Route des Vins keep their own historical layers: Riquewihr's 1291 watchtower houses the Musée du Dolder, while Kaysersberg Vignoble is home to the Centre Schweitzer, devoted to Albert Schweitzer, and to the Musée Historique De Kaysersberg.

Colmar-born Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, is honoured in his own birth house at the Musée Bartholdi, while ceramicist Théodore Deck, native of Guebwiller, is celebrated at the Musée Théodore Deck et des Pays du Florival.

A more recent chapter of visual art unfolds at the MAUSA Vauban - Musée d'Art Urbain et du Street Art in Neuf-Brisach, where international street artists have transformed the Vauban fortifications into a permanent open-air and indoor collection.

Contemporary practice is also supported through dedicated project spaces, such as CRAC Alsace (Centre Rhénan d'Art Contemporain) in Altkirch and the Fondation François Schneider in Wattwiller, both known for exhibitions engaging with photography and contemporary media.