Buildings of Art Noveau

At the turn of the century, Traben-Trarbach was the second largest wine trading city in Europe after Bordeaux. Thanks to its close ties to Prussia and its status as a Protestant enclave on the otherwise Catholic Mosel River, the City was ideally positioned to conduct profitable wine trading business. Initially, wines were exported to neighboring European countries and overseas. The enormous prosperity and wealth generated by wine trading formed the basis for widespread new building construction in the patrician style. The communities of Traben and Trarbach, which remained independent until 1904, were then consolidated into a single administrative unit by official decree, which meant that a bridge had to be built to unite the two cities. No less than the Berlin star architect Prof. Bruno Möhring won the national architectural competition, which was held for the design of the new bridge. Up to that time, he had been working as an independent architect in the Gutehoffnungshütte steelworks in Oberhausen. In Traben-Trarbach Bruno Möhring learned to love the Mosel landscape and became acquainted with the leading Mosel wine dealers. New orders soon followed and many unique buildings were designed by him which are still in excellent condition today.