Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Hotel Lutetia – located midway between the Saint-Germain of existentialism and the Montparnasse of jazz and artist studios – has been the HQ of the literary and artistic crowds. A building brimming with stories, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Serge Gainsbourg, Catherine Deneuve, David Lynch and Brad Pitt have all resided there.
With an aesthetic straddling the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements, it was also a place where artists like Arman, Philippe Hiquily and Takis left their mark. The late French sculptor Cesar Baldaccini decorated his own suite while another eminent sculptor Leon Binet animated the iconic undulating stone facade with depictions of birds, angels, vines and bunches of…
