Through a remarkable photographic archive of precious albums and over a thousand images, this book takes us back in time from the construction of the Samaritaine building in 1870 - an emblem of modernity at the time, with its subtle blend of Art Deco and Art Nouveau - to its reopening in 2021. 

Built by architects Frantz Jourdain and Henri Sauvage, this landmark building on the banks of the Seine in Paris underwent a series of metamorphoses and expansions, which are presented in this book, punctuated by notebooks printed on colored paper that immerse the reader in the lives of the men and women, workers and employees, who worked in this store with its singular history. The book recounts both the architectural project and the human adventure that has unfolded there over the last century and a half.

This publication completes a trilogy dedicated to this photographic collection: Samaritaines which unveils the carte blanche commissioned to 50 artists - young talents and international names - during the building's transformation, and Métamorphose which documents the building's renovation through images taken by photographers Pierre-Olivier Deschamps and Vladimir Vasilev.