This is a hotel in France, just outside Paris:

It used to look like this (I still remember seeing those old Holiday Inn signs here and there in my childhood):

But this building has a secret. It has always been a hotel, and it has not been expanded. But it differs dramatically in one way from its original appearance.

At least, I’m pretty sure it does. I was not able to find an actual vintage photograph of it, only illustrations. There is a mildly Twitter-famous image showing the building’s before and after, but I could not find any reference to this project on the internet that didn’t reproduce just that image.

Here’s the old:

Mémoire2Ville @Memoire2cite

78 JOUY-EN-JOSAS l'HOTEL Val de Bièvre en 1970 Make the world brutal again

10:30 AM ∙ Aug 9, 2021

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37Likes9Retweets

And here’s the old and new, from an interesting Twitter thread in semi-defense of brutalism:

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Even for those who dislike Brutalism, what replaces it often has nothing of the aesthetic boldness. Architecture tells the story of a place, and the erasure of Brutalism is the removal of an important chapter of social, political, economic, and cultural history.

4:37 PM ∙ Jan 17, 2023

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1,184Likes68Retweets

Here’s a Facebook page (in Spanish) where this building is being discussed.

Me, I’m conflicted. The old version is cooler; the new one is typical, bland chain architecture. But brutalism does give me a feeling of subconscious dread. Not conscious, because I sort of like it! But I’m unable to like it fully. I think it’s okay as art, but I’m not so sure about it as architecture, which is to say public art you cannot take down or reserve in a museum.

Still, it’s almost certainly the case that many of us will miss it when it’s gone.

I just hope the beds weren’t like the old walls.

Related Reading:

A D.C. Building Mystery

Can You Find My House?

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #24

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