La Samaritaine, once the largest department store in Paris, has been completely renovated. The aim of the conversion and extension work was to create a mixed-use building with a hotel, office and residential space, as well as a significantly smaller department store.
| Type of Building | Retail and Wholesale |
| Product areas | Doors Facades Fire and smoke protection |
| Schüco Systems | VISS Basic Janisol 2 EI30 VISS Fire |
| Features | Refurbishment Building extension Fire protection |
| Location | Paris, France |
| Completion | 2020 |
| Architects | Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / S A N A A,MEF - Maison Edouard François |
| Specialist company | FRENER & REIFER GmbH |
| Picture credits | © Jansen AG / Florian Kleinefenn |
For the new build, the Japanese architecture duo SANAA created an undulating glass façade that runs in front of the thermal building envelope at a distance of 0.5 m to 1.5 m. The individual curved glass panels are only fixed to the thermal façade at four points using support arms, which are made of laser-welded stainless steel profiles. The ground floor is accessed via eleven double-leaf, 3.30 m tall swing doors in the undulating glass façade. Jansen developed all of the 22 door leaves in close collaboration with Frener & Reifer based on the Janisol 2 EI 30 steel profile system as fire-resistant swing doors. Despite their enormous size, the extra-high door leaves operate extremely smoothly and can be opened easily with minimal effort.
