Picasso painted Guernica at his atelier on Rue des Augustins Grans; Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir discussed existentialist philosophy in coffee tables at Le Prix de Deux Magots and Lutetia Bar; and inside the hotel that holds the same name, Serge Gainsbourg’s lyrics was sung, and today the place is still one of the best places to hear jazz in Rive-Gauche.
In this scenario, the hyper worshiped filmmaker, writer, photographer, artist and interior designer, David Lynch inaugurated a suite that bears his name in one of the most traditional hotels of the region, The Lutetia.
The first art deco hotel in the French capital, founded in 1910, that accommodated for over a century celebrities and big names in the art world, like Matisse, Andre Gide, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Picasso, Josephine Baker and General de Gaulle, who spend there his honeymoon. They say that even the Irish writer James Joyce wrote, while hosted in Lutetia, a part of the classic Ulysses.
Lynch, that each time more create roots in Paris, in 2007 received homage from the Cartier Foundation, a retrospective about his work as an artist. In 2011 was inaugurated the nightclub Silencio, entirely designed by him and inspired by the homonymous club that appears in the film Mulholland Drive.
After finishing Silencio’s project, in late 2011, Lynch stayed in Paris and dedicated himself to creating lithographs that were printed on the same workshop where names like Picasso, Giacometti, Matisse, Miro and Chagall painted and recorded his works. Now, these lithographs and watercolors photographs are disposed alongside the walls of his suite at Lutetia.
The Lutetia has a spectacular story. Designed by the architects Louis-Charles Boileau and Henri Tauzin, has its facade decorated with Leon Pinet Paul Belmondo’s sculptures, father of actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.
At the beginning of the World War II the hotel housed artists and musicians that came from conflict areas or from areas occupied by the German army. After Paris was invaded, the Lutetia was taken as headquarters for the German officers who commanded the operation.
With the arrival of the allies in 1944, Lutetia has been used as a repatriation center for war prisoners, former prisoners of concentration camps, and others who were homeless. With the end of the conflict, the hotel reassumed its place as one of the most luxurious of Rive-Gauche and until these days maintains this position, now under the command of the international hotel chain Concorde.
David Lynch is also a Lutetia’s habitué, and his suite is on the first floor of the building, that houses his creations. However, as you can see from the photos, the famous Lynch’s “dark side” doesn’t make part of the atmosphere of the suite, since he kept the art deco style of the hotel by setting clear, soft and cozy designs. The Universe of David Lynch, the dreams, eroticism and borderline situations of life and death are reflected in his work, but as a reflection option, without imposing on the environment.
