3-053-730 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Vienna Exhibition: Alsace-Lorraine buildings after the fire, 1873. 'The destruction by fire, on the night of Friday, the 1st August, of the Elsass-Lothringen or Alsace-Lorraine farm-house, called the Büre-Hisel in provincial patois, which stood [at] the rear of the Exhibition Palace, is a loss to be severely felt by German visitors. The Büre-Hisel was partly occupied by a collection of agricultural products, and by a very interesting series of little toy-models, which showed the ways of life, the costumes, dwellings, furniture, and employments of different classes of people, in the two recently-annexed provinces of Germany, while other parts of the building were used for eating and drinking, for cooking and storing provisions, or as wine and beer cellars. Our Illustration, showing the ruins or burnt-out shell of the building after the fire, may remind the English observer of the timber-frame houses which are still common in Cheshire and Shropshire. This Büre-Hisel was erected in a large square around a courtyard, with barns, stables, cow-sheds, and cart-sheds; and there was an open gallery...all round the yard...The fire was extinguished in about an hour by the skilful activity of the Austrian military engineers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.