(Re)discover our city - Au Nouveau Paris

Think you know a lot about our capital? Well, let's see about that! Some of the buildings that you walk past on a regular basis have a special story behind them. Dr Robert L. Philippart is a true expert on the subject and will take you through the city to uncover these hidden stories, giving you a new way of looking at some of our emblematic buildings.

The former "Au Nouveau Paris" department store

The building on the corner of La Grand-Rue and Rue Philippe II was built in 1913. It was home to the former "Au Nouveau Paris" store. The establishment, which dates back to 1874, moved to 37 La Grand-Rue in 1894. The store offered its customers a range of linens, home furnishings, baby clothes, shirts for men and boys, and a hosiery, fabrics and corsets department. The fact that it sold factory products at a fixed price, labelled them and offered free entry to the store was something new. These initiatives introduced the strategies of the "department store" in Luxembourg. In 1904, "Au Nouveau Paris" was awarded the gold medal by "Luxembourg Attractions", the predecessor of the current City Tourist Office, for its magnificently decorated store windows, lit up in the evening. Alexandre reserved fixed times for selling exclusively to wholesalers.

Emile Alexandre's son, Emmanuel, took over the store from his father in 1910. He combined several plots of land to build his department store following the same model as the "Warenhaus Riquet" in Leipzig. Luxembourg's only steel-framed building offered 750 m2 of exhibition space. The entire façade was reserved for displaying goods. During the Nazi occupation, the Alexandre family managed to flee the country. The store was sequestrated and renamed "Zum modernen Bekleidungshaus". "Au Nouveau Paris" reopened in October 1946. In 1948, it was taken over by the retailer A. Seligmann. In 1968, the store stopped trading and the space was merged with "Grands Magasins Rosenstiel". In 1997, the building was converted into a multi-store development.

© Robert Philippart / Ministry of Culture / Luxembourg Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO

© Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg – Inconnu

Hôtel Paris-Palace

The Hôtel de Paris gave the Place de Paris its name. The urban development of the Plateau Bourbon began in 1906, and in 1908 entrepreneur Pierre Seyler bought the land at the corner of Avenue de la Liberté and Place de Paris. Joseph Nouveau and Léon Muller, former students of Victor Laloux, the illustrious architect of the Gare d'Orsay, were appointed to design the hotel plans.

Since its opening 1912, the Hôtel de Paris reception hall played host to performances. From 1920 to 1922, ARBED (Aciéries Réunies de Burbach Eich et Dudelange — Burbach, Eich, Dudelange steelworks) leased the building to set up the joint sales company Comptoir Métallurgique Luxembourgeois (COLUMETA) for the promotion of steel products. Charles Barnich turned his property into the "Hôtel Paris-Palace" and in 1926 sold it to the Schock-Weber family, whose heirs remained the owners until 1974. Each room had a bath, toilet and private telephone. Pierre Braun-Petit took over in 1928. Renowned in the field of Luxembourgish gastronomy and patisserie, Braun-Petit represented the Grandy Duchy of Luxembourg's restaurant industry at the Luxembourg pavilion of the Liège International Exposition in 1939. As of 1958, Gusty Hetto-Remmerie made the hotel a meeting place for the district's well-off bourgeoisie, who came to play bridge, "skat" and Rummy. The hotel closed in 1974 and the building seemed bound to disappear. But thanks to a petition signed by more than 4,000 people, the former hotel was included in the supplementary list of national sites and monuments and the Plateau Bourbon became protected at local level. Since 1994, the former hotel has been located in the UNESCO "City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and Fortifications" area.

© Robert Philippart / Ministry of Culture / Luxembourg Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO

© Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg – Collection Dr Kugener