Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris

The Lutetia opened in 1910 to accommodate customers and suppliers of Le Bon Marché, the department store across Square Boucicaut. Its name comes from the Roman name for Paris. The carved fruit and vines on the façade belong to a building created when Art Nouveau was giving way to Art Deco.^[1][2]

Its history includes the German occupation of Paris. The Abwehr, German military intelligence, took over the hotel in 1940. In 1945 the building became a reception centre for people returning from Nazi concentration camps. Survivors received food, beds, clothing and care, while families came looking for missing relatives. A plaque outside remembers both those who returned and those whose families waited in vain.^[2]

The hotel reopened after a major restoration in 2018. Work uncovered Adrien Karbowsky’s 1910 frescoes beneath layers of paint; they were restored rather than painted over again. Bar Joséphine now makes that historic decoration part of an evening at the hotel.^[2][3]

Art remains part of the present hotel. Fabrice Hyber designed the painted glass roof over the Saint-Germain Salon. The signature suites include collaborations with actress Isabelle Huppert and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, while another suite pays tribute to Joséphine Baker. These are named design projects and tributes, rather than a promise that a room survives as a famous guest left it.^[3]