Sarreguemines

Sarreguemines set Europe's tables. From the late eighteenth century the faïenceries here grew into one of the continent's great ceramics manufactories: Sarreguemines earthenware — dinner services, majolica, tiled interiors — travelled from this Moselle border town to dining rooms, brasseries and métro stations across France and beyond. The industry's proudest survivor is the Musée de la Faïence with its jardin d'hiver, the winter garden of the factory director Paul de Geiger: an entire room of ceramic architecture, fountain and all, generally counted among the masterpieces of French decorative art. The Casino des Faïenceries, built by the manufactory for its workers' recreation, has been reborn as a cultural venue — industry's gift to the town outliving the industry itself.

The town sits where the Sarre crosses into Germany, and the border is a neighbourhood rather than a line: Saarbrücken is minutes away, the local Francique dialect seasons the French, and daily life flows both ways across the river. That doubleness is Sarreguemines' character — French administration, Rhenish warmth, and a shared industrial memory with the German bank.

Municipal life gathers, as it long has, in the Salle des Fêtes, the festival hall documented in the concert record, where the town's concerts and celebrations are held. A place that once shipped its craft to the world now hosts the performing kind at home — the kilns are cool, but the firing of occasions continues.