Art Nouveau in Strasbourg developed and was cultivated as a mixture of French influences, especially from the École de Nancy, and Germanic influences, particularly Darmstadt Artists' Colony and Vienna Secession, with some influences of Brussels Art Nouveau added. That synthesis reflected both the position of Strasbourg as a crossroads of European cultures, and the search for a specific identity of the locals, who had been incorporated into the German Empire some 30 years prior, after two centuries of French domination.