Canan Özgül gazed fondly at her grandmother's semaver (samovar in Turkish), which she brought to Strasbourg after her grandmother died in the late 1990s. The round-bodied copper and tin vessel plugged into a wall socket – a rarity at the time, which, according to her granddaughter, "shows the thirst for modernity of this staunch republican." Now 63 years old, Özgül had long used it to prepare tea before switching to a more modern appliance.

The Istanbul native was 18 when she arrived in the Alsatian capital in 1980 to study medicine. After a series of adventures, including a return to Istanbul, she ultimately became an architect and had two children. About 10 years ago, she moved with her partner into a house in Stockfeld, a garden city in northern Strasbourg. On the doorstep, a decorated copper water pitcher holds a flower pot: "I used to wash with it when I was a student. I heated water with an immersion heater because my apartment didn't have a bathroom."

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