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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The former Hotel Mondial, also known as Mondial Hotel, is an Art Deco building built in 1928 in Vichy, at the corner of rue de Paris and rue Dubessay. It replaces the hotel of Hope, built in 1870, bought in 1925 by the couple Méchin-Busset, already owners of the Louvre hotel. Designed by architect Gilbert Brière and built by Chaumeny, it is distinguished by its seven floors, its festive corner pilasters, and its fluted forebody. Its vestibule is decorated with painted panels depicting tropical landscapes with parrots, a style characteristic of the era.

During World War II, the hotel was requisitioned by the Vichy regime. It houses the Ministry of Agriculture and Supply, with the offices of Minister Jacques Le Roy Laduria and Secretary of State Max Bonnafous. Later, the Secret Societies Service, responsible for the fight against freemasonry, set up its premises there and published the magazine Documents masonniques. In 1944, before the Liberation, his archives were burned in the hotel boiler. After the war, he became a command post of the FFI during the purification.

In 1959, the building was converted into a private residence by René Poulossier, owner of the Beaujolais hotel. The ground floor successively hosts an armory (from 1960) and a real estate agency (in 2019). Since 1991, its facades, roofs, vestibule and elevator cage are listed as historical monuments, thus preserving its architectural heritage Art Deco.

The building stands out for its strategic location between the station and the city centre, being the only high-rise hotel outside the thermal district in Vichy. Its style, marked by stylized ironworks and loggias under the roof, illustrates the influence of Art Deco in the hotel architecture of the 1920s-1930s.

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