Immeuble de rapport

3, rue Sellenick, Strasbourg in 1902-04 by LUTKE & BACKES

This building, located et the corner rue Séllenick - rue de Phalsbourg, has been rected at the same time that his neighbour (1, rue Séllenick), for the same customer ⁽¹⁾ and by the same architect. Nevertheless, it shows different ornaments. The frontages, separately examined, seem to give an irregular look. In fact, they have to be read from the corner away, showing the manner the bays are arranged.
The corner has been elaborated according a quite strange way: the architects seemed to have hesitated between a tower and an oriel. They opted for...both. Following that way, the tower, flanked at the first floor by the brackets of the oriel, disappears in the latter one, than emerges at the third floor. The oriel's amortizements shaped like a balustrade are figuring an hypothetic balcony. The corner is topped by a cowl making an echo to that of the Palais des Fêtes.
We won't be tired of admiring the rich décor, sometimes figurative (tulips on the breast-walls, heads on corners), sometimes geometric (fluted brackets and dormers).
The entrance door itself shows that ambivalent décor: carved wood with flowers and stained glass bordering abstaction.

(1) Johann Moeller, audit accountant. His spouse, Berta Wund, owned a tobacco shop in that building (as well as three others respectively located 4, Fossé des Tanneurs; 5, place Corbeau and 18, rue du Dôme).