The proposal devised by MARS Architectes reorganizes the complex around a large central courtyard, accessed from Rue Pavée via two historic gateways. This open space structures circulation and establishes connections between the old mansions, the renovated industrial building, and a small pavilion leading to the underground areas.
The basement level houses the spa, event space, and service areas; the lower floors accommodate the reception and Caudalie’s offices, while the upper levels contain 26 studios for young professionals, arranged around a landscaped courtyard situated at roof level.
In terms of construction, the project combines the restoration of the historic factory buildings with the integration of lightweight contemporary systems. The stone facades of the old mansions retain their original rhythm and thickness, whereas the industrial building features a new glazed envelope based on the original grid. Additionally, exposed beams and building services highlight the structure's character, while wood, curtains, and greenery balance technical precision with a welcoming atmosphere.
Pavée Street by MARS Architectes. Photograph by Maris Mezulis.
Project description by MARS Architectes
The Marais is not a homogeneous historic district, but rather one of the areas of Paris where urban history is most clearly evident as a succession of repurposing, densification, and social restructuring. Originally structured around large aristocratic estates—particularly the private mansions situated between courtyards and gardens—the neighborhood gradually transformed as the expansion of Paris shifted part of the city’s political and residential centers westward. The former mansions, their gardens, courtyards, and outbuildings then became the foundations of a more diverse urban fabric: subdivided dwellings, workshops, shops, storage sheds, warehouses, and service buildings crept into the depths of the city blocks, without completely erasing the aristocratic framework that preceded them.
Added to this morphological transformation was a particularly pronounced social stratification. Around Rue des Rosiers, Rue Pavée, and Place Saint-Paul, the Pletzl became one of the major centers of the Parisian Jewish community. After a presence documented as far back as the Middle Ages—which was then interrupted by expulsions—a community gradually reemerged following the Emancipation of 1791, first with the arrival of Jewish families from Alsace, and then, beginning in the 1880s, with migrants from Eastern Europe. Shops, places of worship, schools, community organizations, and neighborhood social life have permanently embedded this history in the everyday landscape of the Marais. The fact that the site on Rue Pavée was occupied by the private Jewish school Yad Mordekhai prior to construction extends this continuity of use: beyond the architectural value of the buildings, the block is also part of a social, educational, and community history deeply rooted in the neighborhood.
The 20th century introduces another layer of interpretation. Long threatened by unsanitary conditions, demolitions, and the drive toward radical modernization, the Marais became, following the Malraux Law, one of France’s pilot projects for urban preservation. The creation of the preservation district in 1964, followed by the development of the Preservation and Enhancement Plan, shifted the focus of heritage preservation: it was no longer merely a matter of protecting isolated monuments, but of recognizing the value of an entire urban fabric—with its streets, deep lots, courtyards, ordinary apartment buildings, mansions, workshops, and successive transformations. Here, heritage is understood as a living urban structure, whose value lies as much in the relationships between buildings as in the buildings themselves.
It is within this rich historical, urban, and social context that Rue Pavée is situated. The project is located in a neighborhood that has evolved from an aristocratic palace to a workshop, from public housing to a community space, and then from a protected historic district to a globalized heritage city. This layering of successive states gives the site its unique character: it is less a piece of architecture to be restored than a fragment of the city to be interpreted. Intervening here therefore means taking a stance within an urban fabric whose value lies precisely in the accumulation of its transformations, the permanence of its layout, and the ability of its buildings to accommodate new uses without erasing the memories they carry.
A quiet façade
A narrow passageway in the Marais connecting Rue des Francs-Bourgeois to Rue des Rosiers, Rue Pavée is part of the dense, stony landscape of old Paris, where the depth of history often remains invisible from public spaces. Long characterized by deep lots organized around courtyards and gardens, the street still retains today the narrow, almost vertical scale inherited from its medieval fabric.
The site is situated within an area shaped by the successive transformations of the Marais: a former aristocratic neighborhood that gradually became an artisan district, then a working-class neighborhood, and finally a heritage district.
Across from the site stands the synagogue on Rue Pavée, built in 1913 by Hector Guimard for the Ashkenazi Orthodox Jewish community that migrated from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. Built on an extremely narrow lot—barely twelve meters wide—the synagogue features a vertical, undulating façade that reflects the unique spatial conditions found within the depths of the Marais: density, confined spaces, and overlapping uses.
Site History
The site bears traces of the former Hôtel de Lorraine, which was gradually divided and transformed into a succession of private mansions—the Hôtel de Savoisy, the Hôtel Desmarets, and finally the Hôtel d’Herbouville. Certain ancient structural elements remain visible in the existing buildings: medieval cellars, thick walls, roof trusses, irregular floor plans, and painted decorations silently span the various periods of construction.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the buildings underwent extensive renovations. No. 13 was rebuilt in 1737 by Jean Hardouin-Mansart de Jouy and later transformed by Jacques Gondouin a few decades later. No. 11, meanwhile, retains a significant portion of the structures from the former Hôtel Desmarets. But the site was never static.
Beginning in the 19th century, the inner blocks gradually became more densely built-up: workshops, glass-roofed structures, storage sheds, and utility buildings filled the open spaces. The arrival of the Darrasse factories in 1891 introduced a new industrial layer consisting of metal structures and brick-and-iron buildings built up against the historic mansions.
The site thus appears less as an isolated monument than as a condensed fragment of the history of the Marais itself: a complex where traces of the aristocratic palace, the industrial workshop, the administrative building, and the dense fabric of Parisian inner courtyards still coexist.
Transformation
Rue Pavée is the result of several centuries of successive adaptations. The townhouses there do not appear as intact structures, but as buildings that have already been transformed, expanded, divided, and reoccupied. Added to their original masonry are secondary buildings, new layouts, workshops, glass roofs, technical extensions, and, later, metal structures associated with industrial activities. The site therefore does not present itself as an original state to be restored, but as a history shaped by revisions, shifts, and reinterpretations.
This premise forms the basis of the project’s approach. The goal is not to recreate a lost historical image, nor to reduce the whole to an artificial stylistic unity, but to understand how this fragment of the Marais has taken shape over time. Here, heritage is not viewed as a static entity whose appearance must be preserved, but as a living structure capable of continuing to organize uses, circulation patterns, views, and relationships between spaces.
This position finds particular resonance in the thinking of Gustavo Giovannoni. By expanding the concept of conservation from isolated monuments to the urban fabric, Giovannoni invites us to view historic centers as networks of relationships: streets, courtyards, passageways, secondary buildings, open spaces, visual continuities, and built depths. His concept of diradamento does not refer to restoration in the strict sense, but rather to a way of intervening in the historic city through measured thinning, selective clearing, and gradual rearticulation. The goal is not to erase in order to rebuild, but to restore legibility and functionality to the historic fabric.
Rue Pavée follows this logic. The project does not focus solely on private mansions; it explores the entire network of relationships that have developed between porches, courtyards, industrial buildings, basements, and the depths of the city block. Some structures are removed when they block light, obstruct pathways, or hinder an understanding of the site. Others are preserved, not out of nostalgia, but because they bear witness to a crucial stage in the site’s evolution. The value of the site thus lies less in the supposed purity of each of its parts than in the intelligence with which they are assembled.
This interpretation also aligns with Aldo Rossi’s view, for whom the city is not a collection of isolated objects but a slow-evolving structure, composed of continuities and transformations. Urban forms often outlive the uses that gave rise to them; they change function, welcome new populations, and absorb different temporalities, all while continuing to carry a collective memory. From this perspective, Rue Pavée is not merely a heritage preservation project, but an urban fragment whose various lives remain inscribed in the built fabric.
The site has successively served aristocratic, residential, artisanal, industrial, administrative, and contemporary functions. The project does not seek to designate any one of these periods as more authentic than the others. On the contrary, it recognizes that each has contributed to shaping the physical reality of the place. The reinterpreted facade of the former industrial building, the reorganized circulation routes, the reopened courtyards, and the new access points to the basements do not, therefore, stand in opposition to what already exists; rather, they add another layer to a history already marked by additions and adaptations.
In this context, “transforming” does not mean “replacing.” It means keeping alive a whole that has never stopped evolving. Preserving Rue Pavée does not mean freezing its forms in time, but rather extending their capacity to accommodate new uses without erasing the traces of what came before. From this perspective, transformation is not the opposite of preservation; it becomes one of its prerequisites.
One of the project’s main challenges is to restore light, through-views, and continuity of circulation within a complex that has become progressively denser over the centuries.
Circulation routes have been reorganized, and differences in levels are used as spatial resources rather than constraints. The new courtyard facades extend this approach: their light, repetitive design functions less as a standalone element and more as a mechanism capable of diffusing light and depth throughout the block.
