La Samaritaine, once the very model of a popular-price department store in Paris, re-opened last year, sixteen years after it closed. In its new incarnation, owned by luxury group LVMH, it is a collection of ultra-high-end boutiques, apartments and a hotel, but its outward appearance has been largely preserved.
And that appearance is two-faced, marking two major styles of architecture from the last century, Art Nouveau and Art Deco, marking two periods of the store's growth and expansion, and changing tastes.
In fact, the 1910 Art Nouveau buildings designed by Belgian architect Frantz Jourdain had already been toned down in color and stripped of its glass domes by the time Henri Sauvage was designing the Art Nouveau building that fronts directly on the Seine, near the Louvre. In fact, the city insisted on a new style before approving the plans!
Beneath the skin, the two buildings are less dissimilar than might appear: Both use a steel skeleton and a curtain wall to allow large areas of glass.
The store was founded originally in 1870 as a small boutique that grew into one of the earliest modern department stores. Its owners were Ernest Cognacq and Marie-Louise Jaÿ, who later gave their names to an important art collection as well, one of the few major art museums in Paris without an admission fee.
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