The pool that Tarzan inaugurated converted into a hotel
These Parisians are very lucky. Or better: they have ideas, resources and an enormous will because his city does not move from the Olympus of cities. That's not luck. His latest enviable project (and one that we strongly envy) is that of the swimming pool molitor .
Molitor, Molitor: what does that name sound like to us? From Life of Pi? The protagonist is called Piscine "Pi" Patel, in honor of this swimming pool in the 16th arrondissement of Paris . Younger Parisians associate Molitor with Ang Lee's film, which was screened here in an atypical premiere, or with a place that is not only abandoned, but also destroyed. Molitor was, for recent Paris, a sad space, to celebrate events in the best of cases; in reality, it was a hopeless building.
In Paris, if you were "someone", you went to the Molitor
But Molitor's story was too good to be consigned to oblivion. This swimming pool was one of the fifteen that were built in Paris between the 20s and 30s . They were few compared to those in England or Germany, but they made much more noise. The Molitor was built in 1929 by Lucien Pollet with details such as stained glass windows by Louis Barillet. it was scenic , its Art-Deco was powerful and served as centers of intense socialization. That in Paris happens by organizing fashion shows and glittering parties. In Germany, somewhat less. In it, in 1946, the first bikini in France was presented. Boris Vian swam there on the morning of June 23, 1959 , the day he died and this comic tells about it.
art deco spirit
In 1989 the pool was closed and abandoned to its fate, in this case to the uncontrolled graffiti (not to Street Art), to dirt and to be the scene of the less photogenic Paris . Of course, many knew the patrimonial and symbolic value of the pool and there were several citizen initiatives that refused to have it demolished. The Paris City Council had no choice but to listen to them and put it out to public tender. The resurrection had just begun . And the fairy godmother arrived in the form of a hotel group. The Accor group, hand in hand with its most exquisite division, Mgallery Collection, saw the beauty of the space and its possibilities and invented a new Molitor.
Molitor Hotel Room by Accor
This week, molitor is reborn . It does it under a new format private club+hotel , but his soul continues to revolve around the water; maintains the same two pools that it always had , a cover of 33 meters and another discovered of 48 meters, with hot water all year round; a gym, a 1,700-square-meter Clarins spa, a bar-restaurant supervised by Yannick Alléno and, most interestingly, a hotel of the corresponding five stars . This allows access to the pool to everyone who is not a member of the club, that is, people like me. For lovers of hotels and hotel pools, this is a wet dream . Also, literally, because the 124 rooms are distributed around the pool.
Chlorophylls of the world: the Molitor is your new mecca. It is also that of nostalgics, arch-fetishists and lovers of places with a second chance on earth. Paris: I can't stand you.
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This is how the days were spent in the Molitor pool and this is how they will be