The Benedictines of the ancient and powerful but remote Murbach Abbey in a valley nearby had asked for papal permission to relocate in the town of Guebwiller since 1725, but that permission was only granted by Pope Clement XIII in 1759. They settled near the residence of the bishop, a Baroque palace built by Peter Thumb in 1715, and proceeded to erect a number of stately buildings on an area of seven hectares in the south-east of the town. The grand new collegiate church was to be the centre of this "city within the city" but the whole enterprise was cut short by the French Revolution. Notre-Dame was designed by Louis Beuque from Besançon, a pupil of Jacques-François Blondel. Designs submitted by the engineer and architect in 1759 had previously been rejected, and Beuque's first submission in 1760 was also deemed "not modern enough". Beuque's second design was accepted in 1761 and work on the church started the following year. Work was carried on with several interruptions, and Beuque was fired in 1769. He was replaced by the sculptor and architect , who modified some aspects of Beuque's design both on the outside and on the inside. The church was inaugurated on 7 September 1785 by Franz Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach, the bishop of Basel. At that point, the two planned steeples of the facade had not yet been built. In 1844, the north tower was added in a matching design; the south tower was never built.
Description
Type-wise, Notre-Dame de Guebwiller is a basilica. Unlike most other churches, its monumental facade faces east, not west; this has to do with the configuration of the town at a time when the ramparts still stood. The semi-circular apse on the inside is concealed on the outside by an additional set of walls containing the sacristy, the chapter house and the archive; this accounts for the stern, block-like rear end of the sanctuary. The allegorical statues of the facade are the works of Gabriel Ignaz Ritter. The spacious and imposing interior is decorated with statues and reliefs, including the wooden choir stalls and the high reredos, by Ritter and , made between 1780 and 1788. A pair of 1833 statues by Sporrer's son Joseph replace works that had been destroyed during the French Revolution. Some paintings in the church are the work of the noted painters from Strasbourg, the sisters Monique Daniche and Ursule Daniche. The pipe organ is a 1908 instrument in a colossal, Neoclassical 1785 organ case. The total length of the church is. The inside length is. The nave is wide and the transept is wide. The maximal exterior width is. The vaults culminate at.
