The German artist Carsten Höller believes that his “Giant Triple Mushroom” sculpture — which will be exhibited in Place Vendôme as part of the public programming for Art Basel Paris, Oct. 18-20, and on display until Nov. 24 — is “in some sort of dialogue” with the Parisian square.
“I want you to imagine what kind of conversation they would have if they would speak to each other,” he wrote in an email.
The tales Place Vendôme could tell would be enthralling, as this is not the first time the square has become an outdoor art gallery. Paul McCarthy’s green “Tree,” installed in 2014, was sabotaged when the supporting cables were cut. In 2021 Alexander Calder’s “Flying Dragon” (1975) was mounted next to Napoleon’s column to celebrate the opening of Gagosian’s new gallery at the Rue de Castiglione, and last year Urs Fischer’s powerful silver “Wave” (2018) took over the square to much fanfare.
The square is not a dusty museum, said Clément Delépine, the director of Art Basel Paris. “Place Vendôme was destroyed and built new,” he said. “It’s still very much used, it’s very active and, although it’s a place of patrimony, it’s also very much contemporary. And that’s the point of the public program.”
Origins of Place Vendôme
The land where Place Vendôme now sits was originally owned by César, Duke of Vendôme. At the end of the 17th century, the French architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who designed the Grand Trianon at the Palace of Versailles, was commissioned to create a grand octagonal square to celebrate the victories of King Louis XIV’s armies.
The square has had several names through the years, including Place des Conquêtes and Place Louis le Grand. During the French Revolution (1789-99) the name changed again, this time to Place des Piques. In 1792 a statue of Louis XIV on horseback, which was the centerpiece of the square, was torn down.
The Column
After Napoleon Bonaparte’s victory at Austerlitz in 1805, a stone column — supported in a spiral decoration created from cannons captured during the campaign — was constructed in the center of the square. At the top was a statue of the French general dressed in Roman attire.
Napoleon was later removed from the column on orders from King Louis XVIII and was replaced with the fleur-de-lis. The original statue was then melted down and used in part of a mold for a statue of King Henry IV on horseback, which still stands at Pont Neuf. During the reign of King Louis-Philippe, Napoleon was put back on the column, but this time in a redingote, a double-breasted overcoat, and when Bonaparte’s nephew, Napoleon III, was in power, a replica of the original went back up the column.
In 1871 the column was torn down during the rule of the Paris Commune, a group of French revolutionaries who seized power for two months in the spring before being driven out in a bloody period when about 20,000 insurrectionists and 750 government troops were killed. The column was re-erected and completed in 1875, and to this day Napoleon in Roman garb looms large over Place Vendôme.
The Famous Lives (and Deaths)
Over the centuries, some of the world’s brightest luminaries have taken residence on Place Vendôme.
During his last days, the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin stayed at Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James, and he died there surrounded by close friends.
For several decades, the fashion designer Coco Chanel had an apartment at the Ritz Hotel. Chanel, whose atelier was around the corner on the Rue Cambon, began frequenting the hotel in the 1920s. And during World War II, she stayed at the Ritz, which the Germans were using as their headquarters.
Chanel moved permanently to the hotel in 1954 and lived there until her death in 1971. (A suite dedicated to her at the Ritz can be rented starting at 40,000 euros — about $44,000 — a night).
Running around Paris as a young writer in the 1920s with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway was captivated with hotel’s glamour.
During the war Hemingway, who was working as a war correspondent, became obsessed with the idea of freeing the hotel from the Nazis. In August 1944, he arrived in a jeep in Place Vendôme with Resistance fighters. As legend has it, he burst into the hotel, saying: “Where are the Germans? I have come to liberate the Ritz.”
Decades later, in 1997, the colorful U.S. ambassador to France, Pamela Harriman, had a brain hemorrhage in the hotel’s pool (she died hours later in hospital). Later that year, Diana, Princess of Wales, would have her last meal at the Ritz before dying in a car accident several miles away.
Luxury on the Square
Located in the heart of the First Arrondissement, a stone’s throw from the Jardin des Tuileries, Place Vendôme is home to some of the most upscale jewelry houses in the world.
Boucheron was said to be the first jeweler to set up shop on the square in 1893, with Cartier opening its Paris flagship in 1899 just north on the Rue de la Paix (the jeweler also has a boutique on the square). Van Cleef & Arpels has also been on Place Vendôme for over a century, and Louis Vuitton’s Peter Marino-designed store has a showstopping holiday-themed exterior every Christmas.
Chanel’s Watches and Fine Jewelry boutique sits directly across from the Chanel suite at the Ritz. Stoppers on bottles of Chanel No. 5, cut like diamonds, were inspired by the shape of Place Vendôme.
“It’s the very epicenter of French jewelers and there is a certain sense of the craft,” Delépine said. “The Place Vendôme is a place of financial power, political power, of history and a place also of beauty. It symbolizes Paris chic in a way that it’s an immense opportunity to create productive tensions.”
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