My
friend Alison is a painter who likes a very specific subject matter- she paints
abandoned storefronts. I happened to see her the day before I left for my trip
and she reminded me to see if I could find any photos for her. Normally if I
find something I just e-mail them to her. Not only did I find a number of empty
stores to photograph in Paris for her, one of them has an interesting history
so I thought it was worth a posting. Also, it seemed appropriate to write about
this the day after Detroit declared bankruptcy- Alison refers to it as her ‘Mecca’
given that the city has 78 000 abandoned building within its limits. But back
to Paris...
I found
modern-looking storefronts in older buildings, this was located near the Louvre...
I found a
burned out building and an empty corner shop near the Cemetiere du Pere
Lachaise...
But I hit
paydirt when I found the complex of three empty La Samaritaine department
stores near where I am staying...
La
Samaritaine was expanded from a small store to something that
takes up an entire city block (one of the buildings is eleven stories high). The expansion began in 1883 by slowing buying up
neighbouring shops and in 1903-1907 the main building was redone, so the
exterior is an excellent example of Art Nouveau. This is the entrance to the
largest building...
There were also two other stores nearby that
were smaller by comparison but rather larger compared to everything else in the
area. Think of an entire department store roughly the size of the Eaton Centre
in Toronto and you’ll get sense of scale of the size and number of buildings
the department store takes up...
The company
had been losing money since the 1970’s and was finally purchased in 2001 by the
luxury conglomerate LVMH. In 2005 the building was closed because it couldn’t
meet health and safety regulations and is set to reopen as a hotel and mixed
retail in 2016.
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