Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The former Hotel Pams is a private hotel located at 18 rue Émile-Zola (former Rue Saint-Sauveur) in Perpignan, in the historical centre district. Originally, the site was a property acquired in 1852 by Pierre Bardou, founder of the cigarette paper brand JOB, who installed a window factory opening onto a garden yard. This industrial building, with metallic architecture, marked the beginnings of the place before its transformation into a sumptuous residence.

In 1892, after the death of Pierre Bardou, his daughter Jeanne and his son-in-law Jules Pams, heirs of family fortune, undertook between 1896 and 1902 a radical renovation entrusted to architect Léopold Carlier. The hotel then became an eclectic masterpiece, mixing Art Nouveau and antiquisant references, with painted decorations, sculptures and mosaics. The vestibule, the monumental onyx staircase, and the living rooms on the first floor, today municipal reception areas, bear witness to this fascist.

The "day well" decorated with art nouveau plant motifs symbolizes the arts and industries, while the second floor celebrates the maritime episodes of Port Vendres, linked to the shipowner activities of the Pams family. In the back, a garden and patio, integrated into the old factory, were renovated after 1930 by Marguerite Pams-Holtzer, Jules' second wife. The whole, partially classified in 1989, was acquired by the city in 1946 and fully classified in 2023.

The exterior architecture, sober with its eight bays of windows and its shooting balconies, contrasts with the inner courtyard with ionic columns, blue ceramic friezes and golden mosaic surrounding a bronze flute player. In the centre is a marble nymph signed Bastet (1896). Inside, the hall and the monumental staircase concentrate the decorations: allegorical paintings on the first floor (civilization vs barbarity), maritime scenes on the second, and ceiling depicting Cybel in the stairwell.

Artists who collaborated on the project include painters Paul Gervais and Henri Gervex, as well as sculptors Raymonde Maldes and Raymond Sudre. Their works, such as Le Temps passé (bronze) or Héléna (sculpture), dialogue with family portraits, including that of Madame Jules Pams by Jacques-Émile Blanche. After the death of Jules Pams in 1930, the hotel was transferred to the municipality in 1946, becoming an emblematic historic place of Perpignan.

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