VINCI Construction hands over the renovated buildings for La Samaritaine

• A complex revamp spanning 70,000 sq. metres in central Paris, requiring specialist skills
• A new customer reference for listed historic landmark renovation
• New premises alongside the retail areas: a hotel, offices, social housing and a crèche

Petit, a VINCI Construction France subsidiary, handed over today the La Samaritaine renovated buildings, a well-known Parisian landmark established in 1870 by Ernest Cognacq, to the LVMH group. The works began in 2015 and up to 700 employees daily, including experts in listed heritage renovation, were involved.

The project encompassed stores 2 and 4, which are between the river Seine and rue de Rivoli, in Paris’s 1st arrondissement. This 70,000 sq. metre operation involved a full revamp and the complex now houses the La Samaritaine Paris Pont-Neuf department store (almost 30,000 sq. metres), 96 social housing units (6,350 sq. metres), a crèche for 80 children (1,100 sq. metres), offices (16,000 sq. metres) and a Cheval Blanc hotel with 72 rooms and suites (14,500 sq. metres).

The emblematic department store has been entirely restructured. The historic and heritage features, namely the glass roof, monumental staircase and peacock painting, have been refurbished to match the original décor. France’s top ateliers handled the conservation and restoration of the façade’s hallmarks, including the enamelled lava panels, ridges, composite decorations, the ceramics and the mosaics.

In the centre, the historic Art Nouveau building designed by architect Frantz Jourdain now includes social housing units meeting the targets of the city of Paris’ Climate Plan, with primary energy consumption lower than or equal to 80 kWh/sqm/year.

On the Seine side, there is now the Cheval Blanc Paris hotel in the Art Deco building originally created by architect Henri Sauvage. The hotel was designed by architectural firm Maison Édouard François. The full conversion entailed creating 12 lifts and staircases connecting the hotel’s floors. The meticulous work to restore the façade by the river involved integrating openings with sections that provide outstanding thermal and acoustical properties for the indoor areas. The two restaurants on the seventh floor have terraces overlooking the Seine and a garden terrace skirting La Samaritaine’s glass roof to the north. A spa with a 30-metre-long swimming pool and a fitness centre have been built in the first basement.

For the Rivoli block, Japanese architectural firm Sanaa created an unambiguously contemporary design. The building has an ultra-high-tech three-layer transparent façade (a wavy exterior layer, a flat silk- screened layer and a thermal insulating layer). This new construction, combining concrete and a metal structure, stands on rue de Rivoli and rue de la Monnaie. A new glass roof, known as an “ombrelle”, allows daylight to flood the patio and provide natural light in the retail areas in the basement.

This recently completed project is a new testimony to the LVMH group’s trust in VINCI’s know-how, following the Louis Vuitton Foundation, which VINCI handed over in February 2014.

About VINCI Construction

VINCI Construction is a world leader in its fields, which encompass transport infrastructure, buildings, utilities and urban development projects. It operates through its networks of local and specialist subsidiaries, leveraging its specific expertise in major infrastructure projects. VINCI Construction’s 1,000 companies are involved in every stage of a structure’s life cycle (financing, design, construction and maintenance), are active in more than 100 countries, employ over 115,000 people and generated €23 billion in revenue in 2020.