The Hôtel Mezzara will become the Guimard Museum !
29 June2025
After more than twenty years of commitment, Le Cercle Guimard is seeing its project become a reality: the Hôtel Mezzara will soon be home to the Guimard Museum, dedicated to one of the masters of Art Nouveau. Twenty-two years after the creation of the Cercle Guimard, and nineteen years after our first exhibition at the Hôtel Mezzara (“Guimard, album d’un collectionneur”), our association is now taking a decisive step towards the creation of the Guimard Museum. We are proud to announce that our team — Le Cercle Guimard, Hector Guimard Diffusion — with co-financers FABELSI and Banque des Territoires (Groupe Caisse des Dépôts) — has won the call for applications for a fifty-year lease on the Hôtel Mezzara, Hector Guimard’s masterpiece and a listed historic monument. The official letter was sent to us on June 23, 2025.
Hall of Hôtel Mezzara- current state. Photo F. D.
Since this State-owned property was declared “of no public interest” ten years ago, our association has devoted all its energy and resources to turning the Mezzara Hotel into the future Guimard Museum. The strategic turning point in our campaign came in 2017 with the organization of the exhibition “Hector Guimard, précurseur du design” (Hector Guimard, pioneer of design), intended to demonstrate the potential of the Mezzara Hotel as a museum setting. The media coverage generated by the exhibition brought our project to the attention of the public.
Thanks to Belgian architect and historian Maurice Culot, in 2018 we met Fabien Choné, an entrepreneur with a passion for heritage, who breathed new life into our initiative. With his organization “Hector Guimard Diffusion”, we became co-sponsors of the private museum project, which we have since structured and developed together. Two calls for tenders launched by the French State, were declared unsuccessful, before our application was finally accepted on the third attempt.
All these years have enabled Le Cercle Guimard to become more professional, build up a collection, create an archive center and a publishing house — Les Éditions du Cercle Guimard, whose first publication was devoted to the Hôtel Mezzara — to continue our reissue and digitization projects, to develop research on Hector Guimard and his creations, and to establish the association’s headquarters in the architect’s former agency, at Castel Béranger.
An exciting period is now beginning: alongside Art Nouveau specialists, craftsmen, restorers, architects, and cultural and institutional partners, we will design a museum worthy of one of the greatest architects of the turn of the 20th century.
Loggia of the Hotel Mezzara on the second floor on the front of the street side, external view Photo F. D.
First and foremost, we would like to warmly thank our members and the members of the board of directors for their loyalty, commitment, and patience throughout these years of hard work.
We are grateful to Jean-Pierre Lyonnet, the first president of the Cercle Guimard, who passed away several years ago, as well as to all the former members of the board who actively contributed to the development of the association.
Thank you, Arnaud, thank you, Bruno.
We also have fond memories of the first “hectorologists,” some of whom are still members of the Cercle: Henri Poupée, Roger-Henri Guerrand, Alain Blondel, Michèle Blondel, Yves Plantin, Laurent Sully Jaulmes, and Ralph Culpepper.
We are of course also very grateful to Philippe Thiébaut, honorary curator of heritage, and Georges Vigne, curator of heritage, who have significantly advanced knowledge about Hector Guimard through their research, exhibitions, and publications.
And we would also like to thank:
The DRFIP, the State Property Department, the local Paris property department, the Ministry of Culture, the DRAC Île-de-France, and the members of the application review committee for the trust they have placed in us.
The RATP for its active support in promoting Guimard’s legacy.
The museums and institutions that support us and have announced exciting collaborations:
The Musée d’Orsay
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD Paris)
The Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine
The Le Corbusier Foundation
The Archives de Paris
The Musée de l’École de Nancy.
The City of Paris, and in particular Karen Taïeb, Deputy Mayor of Paris, whose constant and decisive support was essential, notably in initiating the Guimard Year in 2023, which greatly contributed to raising awareness of our project.
The Municipality of the 16th arrondissement for its commitment to the museum, and in particular:
Jérémie Redler, mayor of the 16th arrondissement
Samia Badat-Karam, first deputy mayor
Bérengère Gréé, Paris city councilor.
The department of Haute-Marne and the town of Saint-Dizier for their support for Guimard’s artistic castings, with the assistance of:
The GHM foundry
The municipal museum of Saint-Dizier and its curator Clément Michon
Élisabeth Robert-Dehault and all the local stakeholders involved.
Normandy and the town of Cabourg, where Guimard built three iconic villas (La Sapinière, La Bluette, La Surprise),
with the support of:
The Villa du Temps Retrouvé
Tristan Duval, Emmanuel Porcq, Roma Lambert.
Our American partners, who have contributed greatly to Guimard’s international recognition:
The Driehaus Museum
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Alliance Française of Chicago
The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Delta Air Lines.
We would also like to express our sincere thanks to Barry Bergdoll, David Hanks, Sarah Coffin, Ingrid Gournay, David Dozier, and Elisabeth Cummings.
In Catalonia, we would like to thank Teresa Sala, Professor of Art History at the University of Barcelona and specialist in Catalan Modernism.
In Belgium, we would like to thank the Horta Museum and its curator Benjamin Zurstrassen, as well as Françoise Aubry. Our project also aims to strengthen ties between Brussels and Paris around Art Nouveau.
Loggia of the Hotel Mezzara on the second floor on the front of the street side, internal view Photo O. P.
We would also like to thank the professionals who contributed to the quality and strength of our application:
Rydge Avocats, for their legal support
KPMG, for their financial and tax expertise
Beaux-Arts Consulting, for their strategic and cultural expertise
Thibierge Notaires, for the notarial aspects
REVA (Bruno Donzet and Maurice Masri), for the project’s economics
Picard Expertise, for the real estate appraisal
Dozier Stratégie, partnership and cultural financing consultants
We express our deep gratitude to all those who, in one way or another, have supported this project: elected officials, researchers, museums, institutions, associations, journalists, collectors, and enthusiasts—in France and abroad. We would also like to thank all those who, even briefly, crossed our path and offered their help or advice at the right moment. These ten years of effort have enabled us to forge many strong bonds, often friendships, that we will never forget.
The Cercle Guimard executive committee
Nicolas Buisson, Frédéric Descouturelle, Nicolas Horiot, Peggy Laden, Dominique Magdelaine, Olivier Pons