BUILDING OWNER : HOTEL METROPOLE
Marie-Christine DELBOS - General Manager
15, Boulevard du Maréchal Leclerc - 06310 Beaulieu-sur-Mer

ECONOMIC ASSISTANT TO BUILDING OWNER: BOX ASSOCIATES
Linton House, 164/180 Union Street
London SE1 0HF - Royaume-Uni

ARCHITECT: O.A.L
Edouard FRANCOIS – Gérant
136 rue Falguière - 75015 Paris

TECHNICAL DESIGN OFFICE: IOSIS
4 rue Dolorés Ibarruri TSA 30001 - 93188 Montreuil

SPA CONSULTANT: HYDROCONCEPT
31 avenue Princesse Grace MC - 98000 Monaco

KITCHEN CONSULTANT: CUISINE PRO CONCEPT
ZI secteur C 1952 route des pugets - 06700 Saint-Laurent-du-Var

TECHNICAL VERIFICATION: SOCOTEC
1375 Route des Dolines BP 172 - 6903 Sophia-Antipolis

SURVEYOR: CALLEJA GEO TOPO
16 avenue Foch - 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer

The project, a continuing part of a historical and architectural tradition, has been entrusted to a well-known architect, Edouard François, responsible among other things for the recent renovation of Fouquet's Barrière hotel on the Champs-Élysées. "I’ve always been fond of history, the history of places and their memory, the history where you find the famous genius loci that is all too ready to take flight if disturbed,” he declares.

So the great white structure will be rebuilt as it was, massive and majestic, using a high-tech white building material that is not sensitive to salt spray. It will be in full conformity with standards for earthquake and fire resistance, sound insulation and disabled access, and will be the heart of the new hotel.

On the ground floor, freely accessible without steps or platforms, will be the reception desk, salons and bar. Not in the colonnaded style of yesteryear but in new spaces, uninterrupted by pillars, with the horizon of the sea as the only visible reference point.

The restaurant will be situated at a new, lower level created by reprofiling the landscape to restore it to something closer to its original topography. The embankment on the seaward side of the plot will be lowered to bring it closer to the water level. The restaurant will be reached by way of a staircase from the bar.

Another bar, with a magnificent view, will be located on one of the terraces of the big white building. The spa will be tucked away out of sight, invisible from outside. The public will have access to the terrace, bar, spa and pool, with the aim of opening up the new building to the town and its population.

Behind the big white building a large wooded area will be created and planted. Behind the western façade of the Métropole there will be two split-level suites with balconies and direct access to the sea by private lift. Behind the eastern façade there will be other rooms that have no sea view but that are linked by footbridges to balconies looking out onto the sea and the horizon.

The Métropole’s greatest asset is its sea view. It would be a different matter if it gave only onto the street. Everything must be done to take full advantage of this unique asset. It has been adopted as the federating principle governing the architectural approach. The guest-room windows, for example, formerly small and narrow, have become wide panoramic bays, broadening the view of the horizon out to sea.

At the entrance to the site from the street a small, scarcely visible structure will be erected. Designed first of all to mask the blind gable of the adjacent building, it has become a signal announcing that here, on the bend in the road, stands the Hotel Métropole. It is the hotel’s periscope, for otherwise nothing is visible from the street apart from a curtain of Mediterranean vegetation behind a forest of palm trees.

This building will house administrative offices for the hotel staff. Its lift will also take disabled guests from the hotel entrance down to the welcome and reception level.

From the street, for those not using this short-cut for the disabled, a gently sloping pathway will lead straight to the reception area.

Motor vehicles will descend a partly-grassed ramp between walls of plants leading to an underground “grotto”.

Placing the car park below ground level makes it possible to recover areas that are today tarred over.

The choices made by Cabinet Édouard François have been largely dictated by the architect’s special skills in the field of landscaping. Édouard François, who taught at the Landscape School in Versailles, is an acknowledged specialist in Mediterranean vegetation. As such, he also taught at the Mediterranean School of Garden and Landscape in Grasse.

Alongside the renovation of the building, rehabilitation of the garden is an integral part of the project for the new Métropole. A few bushes are not enough to satisfy the expectations of the demanding clientele of a luxury establishment. Clients expect a lush landscaped garden that enhances the identity of the site while preserving biodiversity.

As is the case today, the main building will stand in the heart of a wooded plot. An inventory has been made of the size, species, age and even life expectancy of the existing trees. The number of trees on the plot will remain unchanged, but they may be arranged differently or replaced according to their state of health.    

In the upper part of the plot will be the biggest trees, those that are most fragile and susceptible to salt spray. In the front line, facing the sea, will be smaller trees and those best suited to the marine environment. In all about 50 mature and diversified standards and tall palm trees – the same number as today – will be preserved or replaced, giving the impression that they have been there for many years.

Below them the ground will be covered with magnificent flower beds. A carpet of colour that will rise over the facades of the “tree buildings” of the garden, suggesting that the ground rises to form a flower-covered hill.

The plot will be given over entirely to nature and the Mediterranean garden. Cars will be totally banned.
This is, in many respects, a project for “more” – more vegetation, more nature, more emotion, more colour.

Luxury today can no longer be a synonym for wastage of energy, and the new Métropole will be a model for buildings of very high ecological value.

The project should be exemplary in terms of sustainable development. Its ambition is to be the first hotel in France to receive HEQ (High Environmental Quality, European standard) certification.

The project includes redevelopment of the future public maritime domain in front of the hotel. This strip of land, occupied by the Métropole for more than a century, will be redeveloped in line with the new guidelines for use of the Public Maritime Domain shoreline.

Concrete will be stripped from the "beaches" to reveal the underlying rocks. A smugglers’ path will run right across the plot, as part of the public coastal trail.