The city’s most imposing monument is the Cathédral Saint-Étienne. Built in yellow Jaumont limestone, it dates from the 13th century, but some of its most striking features are much more modern. Among its 6,500 sq metres of stained-glass windows – one of the world’s largest expanses – are works from the 1960s by Marc Chagall. Vivienne Rudd from the city’s tourist office is showing me around. She explains how Chagall tells the story of Adam and Eve in his intricate design, with its abstract lines and ethereal figures: “You can see how Eve is in front of the tree of knowledge, holding a snake, and you can see Adam’s face hiding in the blue panes.” In the windows in the north transept, she shows me where to spot Jesus’s head and his crown of thorns. It takes some concentrating, but then I spy it.
“If you can’t see it, you have to go and drink a shot of mirabelle eau-de-vie [the local plum-based spirit] and then come back and look,” she laughs.
Even without drinking Alice’s elixir, the sight of Metz’s new design hotel soaring into the sky makes me feel like I’ve shrunk. Celebrated Parisian designer Philippe Starck’s Maison Heler took 10 years to complete but finally opened last March, just a few minutes’ walk from the Pompidou-Metz. Its design is extraordinary: a turreted mansion house atop a rather nondescript nine-floor tower block.
Its backstory is equally fantastical. Starck devised a novella, titled The Meticulous Life of Manfred Heler, in which the house, belonging to the eponymous main character, a lonely postwar inventor, is dramatically pushed upwards during an earthquake – hence the house on top of the tower block. The story also involves his love interest, a milkmaid named Rose, whose part in the story inspired the gentle pink decor of the bistro restaurant on the ground floor.
Bedrooms and corridors have an industrial vibe, with neutral tones and concrete walls, and Manfred’s bizarre scientific experiments are depicted in black-and-white photos. Light and colour come from the stained-glass windows – the work of the designer’s daughter, Ara Starck – which cast a beautiful glow across the wood-panelled restaurant and cocktail bar, set in Manfred’s house at the top.
As carefully designed as it is, it’s also affordable, and the food in both restaurants (mains from €23) is excellent. I tuck into white asparagus with hollandaise and cod with a light pea broth and saffron beurre blanc. When I try to read the novella, though, to get a better understanding, it proves utterly baffling – in keeping, perhaps, with this wonderfully curious city.
