48 Rue de Meaux: Transformation of a vacant Parisian Hôtel Meublé into social housing through an exploration of its inherent values

Abstract

Paris is facing an ongoing housing crisis, with thousands of people experiencing homelessness at the same time as a large portion of the building stock is vacant. A type of hotels, “Hôtels Meublés”, have historically functioned as a housing solution for individuals struggling to find permanent housing, but the number of such hotels have rapidly declined during the mid 20th century due to demolition or transformation into tourist hotels. This thesis argues for transforming the remaining Hôtels Meublés, many of which are in very poor condition, into social housing, and does so through a case study of an 1863 vacant hotel located in Paris’s 19th arrondissement. An assessment of the building’s condition, together with a discussion on its inherent values is conducted. The values are discussed in relation to the building’s age, its social function, its monetary worth, and its connection to the city, drawing on the terms “Age Value”, “Use Value”, “Exchange Value” and “Locus” from writings by Alois Riegl (1903/1982), Aldo Rossi (1966/1984), and Henri Lefebvre as interpreted by Purcell (2002). This analysis leads to the choice of Facadism as a transformation strategy. A distinction is thereby made between the preservation of the facades, and the adaptation of the interiors to contemporary standards. Interior access to the building is not granted by the current property owners, which is why a video interview published by Le Parisien in 2022 is used to study the interior spaces. The existing is approached from a perspective of adaptive reuse with the objective of reconfiguring the interior spaces to achieve a higher standard of living. The project results in a total of 15 fully equipped apartments as well as shared facilities for cooking, washing and socialization. This thesis addresses the housing crisis on a building scale and does not claim a solution to homelessness. It does however intend to show an example of how the transformation of one abandoned building can contribute to the continuation of a building type characteristic of Paris, while also filling an important function in a city with a seemingly endless demand for housing.