Villa Europa

The beautiful neo-baroque building is also called Villa Röchling, after its former owner, the banker Eduard Röchling, son of Carl Röchling, a steel and mining magnate. The villa was built in 1913 according to plans by the architects Karl Brugger and Rudolf Seifert on a park-like property with a small coach house. In 1927, the property was transferred to the city of Saarbrücken, which turned the building into a children's convalescent home. After the war, the villa was initially used as a retirement home. For this purpose, chief building officer Paul Seeberger remodeled the villa between 1952 and 1954 and redesigned the main staircase. He also added an elongated, two-storey building. After the retirement home was closed, the building ensemble stood empty for quite some time. In 1983, the federal state of Saarland took ownership of the villa and undertook renovations in order to convert the building ensemble into a Franco-German school. From 2001 to 2004, the building stood empty again until it was renovated for 4.9 million euros. Since 2006, the Villa Europa houses several francophile institutions and it is the administrative headquarters of the Franco-German University.