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| paris architecture |
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| top ten paris |
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part of the essential architecture network |
| Top Ten Essential Architecture | top ten Paris shops | |||||||||||||
| For a more complete list, see Paris Main List | ||||||||||||||
| 1 | Magasin au Bon Marche | |||||||||||||
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Le Bon Marché ("the good market", or "the good deal" in French) is the name of one of the most famous department stores in Paris, France. It is sometimes regarded as the first department store in the world. Although this depends on what is meant by 'department store', it may have had the first specially-designed building for a store in Paris. The founder was Aristide Boucicaut. |
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| 2 | La Samaritaine | |||||||||||||
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The large building is located in the Ier arrondissement, on the banks of the River Seine, at the north end of the Pont Neuf. The nearest Metro station is Pont-Neuf. The store opened in 1869. The style is a blend of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, designed by Frantz Jourdain (1847–1935) and Henri Sauvage. The department store owes its name to a hydraulic pump installed near the Pont Neuf, which operated from 1609 to 1813. On the front of the pump was a gilded bas relief of the Good Samaritan. On 10 June, 2005 it was announced that La Samaritaine was to be shut for several years because inspections found it a serious fire risk. |
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| 3 | Tati | |||||||||||||
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| 4 | Patisserie Stohrer | |||||||||||||
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Paris is filled with this sort of typical residential building that has a shop on the ground floor. The combination began in the Middle Ages and continues today, in part because every generation of architect breathes fresh life into the style. The apartment with shop combination has given Paris its wonderful small neighborhoods. This particular address is interesting because the pastry shop, similar to so many across the city, has a very specific Rococo history. In 1725, the unfortunate bride of Louis XV arrived in Paris. Marie Leczynska was spectacularly unsuited for the position; her lack of French was the least of her problems. |
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| 5 | Galerie Vivienne (originally Galerie Marchoux) | |||||||||||||
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This is the best-preserved of the famed 19th-century shopping arcades in Paris. The Neo-classic bas-reliefs and luxurious star patterns in the Italian mosaic floor are particularly impressive to modern eyes. But watch your step: the different varieties of stone have worn unevenly over the past 160 years. The floor’s creator, G. Facchina, cleverly tiled his name and Paris address into several thresholds around the Galerie in a decorative act of self-promotion. I often wonder if it worked. Above his floor, the walls are decorated in a celebration of commerce, with carved cornucopia, anchors, wheat, and beehives; unlike many Paris arcades, which have fallen into shabbiness, here the paint is fresh and the glass roof is clean. Structurally, the arcades’ iron frames support panels of glass that allow light into the interior space, much like a greenhouse. |
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| 6 | Les Halles | |||||||||||||
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Les Halles is an area of Paris, France, located in the 1er arrondissement. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles. It is notable in that the open air center area is below street level, like a pit and contains sculpture, fountains, and mosaics. Beneath this lies the underground station Châtelet-Les-Halles, central hub of Paris's express urban rail system, the RER. |
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| 7 | Passages Couverts- Covered Shopping Arcades | |||||||||||||
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Sadly, these passages didn’t hold sway for very long; they were soon displaced by the much larger and more alluring department stores. But even today, the largest French department store has kept an arcade reference in its name: Galeries Lafayette. | |||||||||||||
| 8 | Galeries Lafayette | |||||||||||||
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In 1893 Théophile Bader and his cousin Alphonse Kahn opened a fashion store in a small haberdasher's shop at the corner of rue La Fayette and the Chaussée d'Antin, Paris. In 1896, the company purchased the entire building at n°1 rue La Fayette and in 1905 the buildings at n°38, 40 et 42, boulevard Haussmann and n°15 rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. Théophile Bader commissioned Georges Chedanne and then his pupil Ferdinand Chanut to design the layout of the Haussmann location. A glass and steel dome, and Art Nouveau staircases were built in 1912. |
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