La Samaritaine
Encyclopedia
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
in Paris, France, located in the First Arrondissement. The nearest metro
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit metro system in Paris, France. It has become a symbol of the city, noted for its density within the city limits and its uniform architecture influenced by Art Nouveau. The network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km ...
station is Pont-Neuf
Pont Neuf (Paris Metro)
Pont Neuf is a station of the Paris Métro in the heart of old Paris and is connected to the Île de la Cité by the nearby Pont Neuf. It opened in 1926 with the extension of line 7 from Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre to Pont Marie....
. It is currently owned by LVMH
LVMH
LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton S.A., better known as LVMH, is a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate headquartered in Paris, Île-de-France, France. The company was formed after the 1987 merger of fashion house Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy, a company formed after the 1971 merger...
, a luxury-goods maker. The store, which had been operating at a loss since the 1970s, was finally closed in 2005 because the building did not meet safety codes. Plans for redeveloping the building involved lengthy complications, as the representatives of the store's founders argued with new owners LVMH over the building's future as a department store or a mixed-use development. In 2010 it was finally announced that a Japanese firm had been chosen to redesign the building as a combination hotel/apartments/offices, with a small retail component.
History
The store was first opened in 1869 by Ernest Cognacq and Marie-Louise Jaÿ, his wife and incidentally the first clothing vendor at Le Bon MarchéLe Bon Marché
Le Bon Marché is the name of one of the best known 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...
, a rival department store. Cognacq began his trade selling ties under an umbrella on the Pont Neuf, then took a space on the :fr:rue de la Monnaie, starting out on a small scale with a very small boutique. By 1900, the couple had decided to expand their enterprise, giving birth to the large edifice seen today, the "Grands Magasins de La Samaritaine."
Inspired by the commercial methods of Aristide Boucicaut
Aristide Boucicaut
Aristide Boucicaut created what is considered to be among the first department stores.Born in Bellême, Orne, at 3:00 A. M. on Bastille Day, the son of a banker, he began as a simple clerk in Bellême before he left to become a fabric salesman selling shawls...
to those of Le Bon Marché, Ernest Cognacq drew upon various sources in organizing the ideal (and ideally managed) department store. Cognacq arranged La Samaritaine as a collection of individually owned stores, each managed by true "petits patrons" who operated in concert yet autonomously.
Through the steady acquisition of neighboring buildings, Ernest Cognacq regularly expanded what could no longer be called a "boutique." The surrounding city blocks were entirely reworked and reconstructed progressively from 1883 to 1933. (Notably, between 1903 and 1907, this work was taken on by the architect Frantz Jourdain, who applied an Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
aesthetic to the building.) Further structural changes were successfully completed in 1933 by Henri Sauvage
Henri Sauvage
Henri Sauvage was a French architectural designer.Sauvage was born in Rouen, France. After studying at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of Jean-Louis Pascal, he opened a wallpaper shop in Paris for which he got orders from Hector Guimard and Louis Majorelle, he then...
who, in his turn, reworked the architecture to reflect the aesthetic principles of Art Déco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
. The result was an eleven-story department store, one that is today considered a historical monument.
Falling prey to the national deficit of the 1990s, La Samaritaine saw itself shrink: it was bought in 2001 by LVMH
LVMH
LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton S.A., better known as LVMH, is a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate headquartered in Paris, Île-de-France, France. The company was formed after the 1987 merger of fashion house Louis Vuitton with Moët Hennessy, a company formed after the 1971 merger...
, the luxury-goods company that had just previously purchased Le Bon Marché
Le Bon Marché
Le Bon Marché is the name of one of the best known 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...
. On 15 June 2005, in order to update the 19th-century building to modern standards of security, or for purposes of restructuring
Restructuring
Restructuring is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs...
, as the labor unions believe, the department store was closed. It is estimated that La Samaritaine will reopen in its new incarnation as a hotel/apartments/offices in 2013.
The name La Samaritaine ("the Samaritan Woman") comes from a hydraulic pump installed near the Pont Neuf
Pont Neuf
The Pont Neuf is, despite its name, the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. Its name, which was given to distinguish it from older bridges that were lined on both sides with houses, has remained....
, which operated from 1609 to 1813. The front of the pump featured a gilded bas-relief of the Samaritan Woman
Samaritan Woman at the Well
The Samaritan woman at the well is an episode in the life of Jesus that appears only in the Gospel of John, in . In Eastern Orthodox Church tradition, she is known as Photina.According to the John 4:...
drawing water for Jesus at the well as described in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
. Cognacq's original stand was on the former site of this structure.
The store was well-known for its rooftop café, which afforded excellent views of the city.