Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, Department store in 9th arrondissement, France
Galeries Lafayette Haussmann is a department store on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris's 9th arrondissement, with a pale stone facade topped by a glass-walled level and a grey metal-and-glass roof. Curved balconies with dark metal railings run across the facade, and a large white script sign reading "Galeries Lafayette" hangs over the corner. Inside, the Art Nouveau dome rises 43 meters, supported by ten reinforced-concrete pillars and lit by ten beams of stained glass by Jacques Gruber.
Théophile Bader and Alphonse Kahn founded this store in 1894 as a small fashion shop on Rue La Fayette. Through purchases of neighboring buildings between 1903 and 1912, the current complex took shape, with the dome completed by Ferdinand Chanut in 1912.
The name comes from Rue La Fayette, which honors the French general who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Today the dome hall regularly displays changing installations by contemporary artists that shoppers can view while walking through the ground floor.
The main entrance sits directly on Boulevard Haussmann and leads into the central hall under the glass dome. Free guided heritage tours run on Sundays and last about one hour.
On 19 January 1919, pilot Jules Védrines landed a Caudron G III aircraft on the store's roof terrace; a stone stele marks the feat. The terrace opened with the 1912 building and looks out over Paris and its then-new Eiffel Tower.
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