Mon Trait Thionville: the façades nobody photographs — Beffroi, Thionville

Thionville spent nearly fifty years as Diedenhofen, a German town on the Moselle, and the streets built in those years are still there: bay windows, carved lintels, wrought-iron balconies, the sinuous line of Jugendstil sliding into the geometry of Art Deco. They are ordinary streets, walked past every morning. On 19 and 20 September 2026, in the hall of the Beffroi, twenty-five drawings ask the town to look up.

Gérard Wecker, a retired engineer who draws, has spent his time on the façades nobody photographs — not the monuments on the postcards, but the quieter buildings of the neighbourhoods raised during the German annexation, where Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and Art Deco sit side by side in the same street. The works are line drawings and Chinese ink washes, a technique that suits the subject: what survives on paper is the line of a cornice, the curve of a bay, the things a photograph flattens and the eye stops noticing.

The exhibition is shown with the support of the Ville de Thionville as part of the European Heritage Days, and Wecker is there both afternoons to talk to visitors. A free game invites people to recognise the houses he has drawn — the answers are out there in the town — with five photographic books on Thionville drawn by lot on the Sunday at 6pm.

Practical details

• When: Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September 2026, 2pm to 6pm both days
• Where: Salle du Beffroi, Place Anne Grommerch, 57100 Thionville, France
• Admission: free
• Access: ten minutes from the railway station; step-free access

The exhibition is part of the European Heritage Days programme in Thionville. Cultural Heritage Online lists this event for readers travelling in Lorraine.