We are continuing a series of art walks in the French capital. Our guide is the professional architect Anna Bakhlina.
The object of our today’s episode is La Samaritaine, historically one of the largest department stores of the French capital located in its first arrondissement.Inaugurated in 1869 as a small appaurel shop, it has progressively expanded to what became a series of department store buildings.
The complex has been listed since 1990 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.However, La Samaritaine, which had been operating at a loss since the 1970s, was closed in 2005. A luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH bought the complex to undertake its large reconstruction and modernisation. For this purpose, it selected the Japanese architectural bureau SANAA.
After seven years of renovation a mixed-use complex, which massively expanded to the neighbouring district was (re)open. New Samaritaine features shops, boutique hotel, fine restaurant, brewery, cafes, offices, and social housing.
Anna will walk us thought both, historical and modern part of the complex. We will enjoy the magnificent Art Nouveau elements of the original building, street views of the surroundings and also the modern wavelike glassy facade which is signature of the contemporary Japanese architectural style.
We will discover the interior of the building which hides some curiosities known only by insiders, such as Anna who used to collaborate with SANAA on another project and had a chance to visit the construction site of La Samaritaine.
She began her career as a professional volunteer and a researcher, in the international settlement of Auroville in South India.Until recently, Anna was a key member of the design team for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art SANAA, the 2010 Pritzker Prize-winning bureau in Tokyo. In 2016, as a leading architect at atelier Tekuto, she was involved in the development of the Boltun project, which won the annual national Japan Concrete Institute award as the best concrete building of the year in Japan (2018).
Over the past 2 years in collaboration with buro LOCAL, Anna worked on a joint Franco-Russian research project for the housing sector in Russia.
