A STAR IS REBORN

A Parisian retail icon rises from the ashes, all contemporary guns blazing, thanks to an extensive and sensitive renovation by a quartet of design studios

- AMY SERAFIN

When Paris’ iconic department store La Samaritaine closed in 2005 for safety reasons, it had clearly seen better days. It was once the place you went to buy a new broom, or to take visitors for a spectacular view of the Seine, but its art nouveau interior had aged into a state of permanent melancholy.

A salesman named Ernest Cognacq, with his wife Marie-Louise, opened a store on this spot in 1870. As it grew, the architect Frantz Jourdain convinced them to erect a new building that would bring ‘art into the street’. They inaugurated his light-filled, iron-framed art nouveau building in 1910, followed by Henri Sauvage’s art deco extension in 1928. But by the 1970s, the Samaritaine’s sales were in decline and, in 2001, the luxury goods group LVMH acquired the store’s four timeworn buildings.

After 16 years of legal wrangling and construction, LVMH has finally unveiled the new Samaritaine, run by the group’s travel retailer DFS. LVMH hired four separate firms to redesign different parts of the store, while specialist contractors were brought in to painstakingly renovate historical features, such as the magnificent glass roof, grand staircase, peacock frescoes on the top floor, and enamelled lava panels on the façade.