Café de la Paix

The Café de la Paix (Café of Peace) is the oldest and most famous café of Paris. It is located in the 9th arrondissement.

Genesis

The Café de la Paix is a structural component of today's Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, as it is located on the ground floor of this hotel. The entire building was commissioned by the bankers and real estate owner Emile Pereire, who had often collaborated with the architect Alfred Armand. Armand designed the overall building of the Grand -Hôtel de la Paix, to the Café de la Paix is one. The entire block in which the hotel is built, was designed by Charles Garnier. After the start of construction in April 1861 the hotel was completed after a construction period of 15 months in July 1862. While the Grand Hotel until July 15, 1862 opened its doors, the Café de la Paix was already inaugurated on 5 May 1862. It should first serve the guests of the Grand Hotel, but was also open to other guests. The opening of the chic cafes by the Empress Eugénie ( wife of Napoleon III. ) With music and Jacques Offenbach as a conductor took place even before the nearby opera had received its dome. At the time of the opening of the radical urban renewal of Baron Haussmann just ended.

Decorated in the style of the Second Empire with subspaces as Café Opera and Opera Carré, guests flocked to the 1867 World Fair between April 1, 1867, the November 3, 1867 here to save. In the German leader for the World's Fair, it has been mentioned by name. The obvious Paris Opera was inaugurated on January 5, 1875. The proximity to the opera brought figures such as Oscar Wilde (1898), Jules Massenet, Josephine Baker, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant or Ernest Hemingway ( he wrote here in 1926 parts of The Sun Also Rises ) as guests. Frédéric -Auguste Bartholdi has been produced here parts of the sketches of the Liberty Statue. A first renovation of the cafe was in 1939. On 25 August 1944, German grenade hit the hotel, but the erupting fire was quickly extinguished by the staff of the hotel. The café, a hotel was rated on 22 August 1975 as a historic monument by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2003 it was subjected to re- renovation. In 2005, the cafe began his series of design desserts as a tribute to the fashion capital of Paris.

Location and meaning

The Café de la Paix is ​​not on the rue de la Paix, but is named after the Grand Hotel, which is in turn close to the luxury shopping street rue de la Paix. Official address is the Place de l' Opera No. 5 in the 9th arrondissement. It offers a look at the Paris Opera and the Boulevard des Capucines, a Parisian Grands Boulevards. It is the last surviving café dating from the 19th century. in Paris and similarly known as the Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots. The Métro lines 3, 7 and 8 operate near the Opéra stop.

Others

The café is sung by Horst Winter in Showdown at Café de la Paix in Paris (Text: Heino Gaze, Music: Fritz Schulz- Reichel, original 1949), later cover versions came from René Carol (1950 ), Gerhard Wendland, Detlef Lais and Gitta Lind ( 1951).