When it opened, it was France's largest hotel, boasting 476 master bedrooms and 56 bedrooms for guests' staff. A facelift in 2003 saw the creation of two rooftop suites and the Givenchy spa, and the renovation of the fa?e, grand staircase and hall. Doubles from €260/£186.Opened in 1931, the Grand H? (00 33 4 50 40 34 34, www.domaine-de-divonne ) at Divonne-les-Bains, a spa near the Swiss border that was fashionable with both the aristocracy and industrialists, was a manifesto for modernity, with its streamlined white fa?es, balconies with views of Mont Blanc, and magnificent Art Deco lobby. It is now part of a complex that includes a spa, golf course, restaurant, theatre and casino. Doubles from €260/£186.A more modest Art Deco hotel is to be found in the spa town of Dax, in south-west France. The H? Mercure Splendid (00 33 5 58 56 70 70, www.accorhotels ), with its striking pergola, has bedrooms still with their Art Deco furniture.
But the pi? de r?stance is the lobby, where a cascade of illuminated glass welcomes guests. Doubles from €107/£76.Another Art Deco gem is the H? Mercure in Biarritz (00 33 5 59 24 74 00, www.groupe-segeric ). Built in 1928 by Louis-Hippolyte Boileau, one of the architects of the Palais de Chaillot, the hotel has a fine geometric fa?e, a mosaic porch, and Art Deco walnut furniture. Doubles from €110/£78.STORY OF THE STYLEArt Deco was a reaction against the overblown mishmash of the Beaux-Arts style, and followed on from the organic fluidity of Art Nouveau, but rejected the latter's excess of decoration. It was a meeting of rationalist visions and the French decorative arts tradition, the industrial era and a last gasp of handmade luxury.Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, African art, modern dance and the machine age all provided inspiration. In the decorative arts, this meant the use of lacquer, exotic woods, glass, wrought iron, and tubular steel, and sharkskin, parchment and ivory, and a love of contrasting colours and textures. In architecture, this meant floral and figurative motifs and relief friezes, vertical fluting, zigzags, streamlining, stylised geometrics, and, above all, the privileging of light and space, exploiting the potential of reinforced concrete, large windows and skylit atriums.Long before the term Art Deco was coined, it was known as le style paquebot.
Many of the leading architects and designers, such as Patout and Ruhlmann, worked on the interiors of La Normandie and the Ile-de-France, a style that they transposed on to dry land with prow-like forms, porthole windows and funnel turrets.Originally, there was no clear divide from Modernism. Both looked to modernity, but Le Corbusier's Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouvel at the 1925 Exposition forecast the break to come. If Modernism was rationalist and functional, Art Deco was more about surface. While Modernism was favoured for schools, town halls and petrol stations, Art Deco was perfect for cinemas, hotels and entertainment.Robert Mallet-Stevens is the architect who best bridges the two movements. A participant in the 1925 Exposition and founding president of the breakaway Union des Artistes Modernes in 1929, his masterpiece is the Villa Noailles (00 33 4 94 08 01 98, www.villanoailles-hyeres ), built for Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles at Hy?s, in the South of France, and restored in the 1990s for exhibitions.