The Council of Europe1

The venerable city of Strasbourg has long been famed for its stately Cathedral, its University, its baroque palaces, the quaint houses of its medieval quarter known as La Petite France—and for its greatest single gift to European culture: the invention of printing by Johann Gutenberg five centuries ago. During the past year its people have proudly displayed a new edifice symbolizing what many regard as the greatest single step toward European unity. La Maison de l'Europe, built in five months on land given by the municipality, was formally opened on August 7, 1950. It stands in the northeast quarter of the city at Place Lenôtre, facing the pleasant park of l'Orangerie across the tree-lined Allée de la Robertsau. The long white structure, with fifteen flags floating in the breeze before its central portal, is strictly functional, having been planned, with a view toward efficiency and economy, as a temporary headquarters to last ten years.