The Whale House — Haus zum Walfisch — is a late-Gothic merchant's house on Franziskanerstrasse, easily spotted by its richly carved oriel window jutting out above the street. The house was built around 1516 for Jakob Villinger, treasurer of Emperor Maximilian I, who never lived there himself but rented it out.
The most famous tenant was Erasmus, who fled here from Reformation-torn Basel in 1529 and spent two years writing in the upper rooms. Look up at the oriel for a carved whale and a bust thought to portray Erasmus himself. The building is now a bank, but the exterior remains one of the finest pieces of late-medieval architecture in the old town.