(Re)discover our city - Au drapeau luxembourgeois

Think you know our capital well? Well, let's see about that! Some of the buildings that you walk past on a regular basis have a special story behind them. Dr Robert L. Philippart is a true expert on the subject and will guide you through the city to uncover these hidden stories, making you look at some of our symbolic buildings in a new way.

Au Drapeau Luxembourgeois at 2, Côte d’Eich

Founded in 1880 in Rumelange, the shop sold fabrics, professional clothing, children's costumes and coats. Nathan Kahn (1845–1925) and Pauline Behrmann set up their shop named Au Drapeau Luxembourgeois in 1882 on the corner of Place du Puits Rouge and Côte d’Eich. Their son Max opened a branch on Place de Paris in 1918. This shop was taken over by René Behrmann and stayed open until 2003. The shop on the corner of Puits Rouge and Côte d’Eich was seized by the Nazis and renamed Kaufhaus Gute Ecke. In September 1946, Nic Theisen acquired the business under its original name Au Drapeau Luxembourgeois and kept it until 1951. The professional clothing shop was then taken over by Barbe Majeres and moved to Grand-Rue. In 1952, the Au Drapeau Luxembourgeois building was demolished. From 1953, the new building housed a pharmacy named Pharmacie des Nègres, which remained on this site until 2009, albeit having changed its name to Pharmacie du Ginkgo in 2007. When the shop moved from this site in 2009, the ceramics that the pharmacist E. Widung had installed at the entrance were included in the protected monuments register. These two works were designed by the painter and sculptor Léon Nosbusch and manufactured by the internationally renowned Helman ceramics factory in Brussels. The origins of the Pharmacie des Nègres date back to before 1817 when Albert Lenoël took over the pharmacy of the same name from François-Xavier Schauer. Born in Braunau in what was then Bavaria, Schauer came to settle in Luxembourg in 1781. In 1832, Nicolas Rothermel took over the Pharmacie des Nègres and moved it from Rue Philippe II to Grand-Rue (No. 18). Rothermel's son, Louis-Charles, sold the shop in 1872 to Corneille Schroeder, who then sold it on to Nicolas Klees in 1891. In 1908, Klees relocated the shop to 16 Grand-Rue. The pharmacy's sign comprised two canvas paintings of black men dressed in European clothing between crates and boxes with the names of pharmaceutical products on them. When the shop moved in 1908, these images were replaced by others on either side of the front door. These were majolica black warriors standing 1.65 m tall and wearing a feathered headdress and belt, one carrying a spear and a shield, the other a bow and a club. Léon Nosbusch's new ceramics were inspired by the previous images.

From 2019 to 2020, the former Pharmacie des Nègres building was occupied by a branch of the lingerie brand Hunkemöller.

© Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg - Bernhoeft Charles 1898

© Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg - Batty Fischer