SO/ Paris

SO/ Paris occupies the central tower of a former government office complex at 17 boulevard Morland, in the Arsenal quarter of the 4th arrondissement. The complex stands on the former Île Louviers, an island in the Seine. Quai Henri-IV, on its river side, was built on land from the island in 1843. Quai Morland became a boulevard in 1844, after the narrow arm of the Seine that it ran along was filled in. Rue Agrippa d'Aubigné, the hotel's street, is named after the poet, soldier and historian Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigné (1552–1630).^[1][4][2][3]

The complex was planned as an extension of the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall, for offices of the City and of the Préfecture de la Seine, the State administration of the Seine département, which included Paris. The City of Paris dates its construction to 1957–1964. Albert Laprade, one of the State's chief architects for civil buildings and national palaces, designed it with Pierre-Victor Fournier and René Fontaine. Its H-shaped plan joins a central tower about 50 meters high, with 16 floors above the ground floor, to two wings of 9 floors, with a forecourt on boulevard Morland and a service courtyard on the Seine side.^[4][2][3]

Construction was chaotic and much debated. From the start, the tower was taller than the planning rules allowed, and three floors were added to it during construction. The national historic-monuments commission repeatedly invoked a 1943 law protecting the surroundings of historic monuments to question the buildings' position and height. The State transferred the property to the City and the Département of Paris in 1980, and works in 1994 replaced most of Laprade's interiors. In 2014 the complex held offices of the City, the State and the city's urban-planning agency, the Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme.^[2][4]

In 2014 the City put the complex into Réinventer Paris, a call for redevelopment projects on 23 public sites. On 3 February 2016 the developer Emerige and David Chipperfield Architects Berlin won with Morland Mixité Capitale, a scheme that named So-Sofitel as the future operator of the hotel, bar and restaurant. In December 2016 the Commission du Vieux Paris, the city's heritage advisory committee, regretted that the scheme radically changed Laprade's H-shaped plan and turned the open forecourt into a closed courtyard.^{[3][6][5][8][10]}

Work began in 2018, with the Paris firm CALQ as executive architect. The old buildings were repaired rather than replaced wherever possible. Two new blocks, one on the boulevard and one on the river side, stand on vaulted arcades over a new public passage from boulevard Morland to the Seine. Mayor Anne Hidalgo opened the complex in June 2022, when it was renamed La Félicité. It holds private and social housing, offices, shops, a food market, a nursery, a youth hostel and the hotel.^[6][7]

SO/ Paris opened in September 2022 as the first SO/ hotel in France. The brand belongs to Ennismore, a hotel company majority-owned by the Accor group since 2021. Denis Montel, who leads the design firm RDAI with Julia Capp, has said that eight concrete pillars in the lobby could not be removed, so RDAI encased them in plaster columns. The metal panels at the back of the lobby trace contour lines from old engravings of the Île Louviers. The 15th and 16th floors, which David Chipperfield Architects say were open to the public for only a few years after the building was finished, now hold Bonnie and The Seeing City. This 2022 installation of mirrors and kaleidoscope boxes is by Studio Other Spaces, the studio of the artist Olafur Eliasson and the architect Sebastian Behmann.^{[12][11][13][9][6][14]}