Sotheby’s to move to new headquarters in the heart of Paris’s art fashion and luxury district
Paris – Monday, June 24, 2024. Sotheby’s today announces its forthcoming move to “83 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré” in the heart of Paris’s art, fashion and luxury district. The relocation of its Parisian headquarters, which will take place in mid-October, marks a milestone in the positioning of Sotheby’s in France, and highlights the auction house’s commitment to Paris.*
Spread across 3,300 square meters on five floors, the new flagship Paris building is an ever more effective tool at the service of the artworks and the display of prestigious collections. Sotheby’s new Parisian home will be open and convivial, offering an enhanced experience to clients. A new must-see Parisian address, Sotheby’s will also be offering master classes, events, as well as elegant and welcoming relaxation and dining areas.
Sotheby’s to move to new headquarters in the heart of Paris’s art fashion and luxury district
The opening of this new location is aligned with the company’s global strategy. It coincides with the imminent opening of Sotheby’s Hong Kong in July 2024 and precedes the 2025 move of Sotheby’s New York to the Breuer building, once home to the Whitney Museum of American Art. By choosing a landmark location in the beating heart of every city, Sotheby’s reinforces its role as a global player in the worlds of art and luxury. Opening up to Paris and its vibrant cultural life, this new Sotheby’s site will become a cultural destination in its own right, offering a premium experience.
By moving from No. 76 to No. 83 on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Sotheby’s gains nearly 30 percent more exhibition space. This enables it to offer a complete range of expertise across its 15 specialist departments, from ancient, modern and contemporary art to the arts of Asia, Africa and Oceania, and from design, old masters, silverware, books and manuscripts to luxury goods, jewelry, watches, handbags, wine, cars and more.
The Collections department, which is dedicated to the auction of prestigious ensembles and iconic collections under the leadership of Mario Tavella, whose expertise lies in this area, has contributed to Sotheby’s considerable growth in Paris in recent years.
Private sales are one of Sotheby’s key strengths: they offer a tailor-made service to clients wishing to sell or acquire exceptional works of art outside of the confines of auction.
Mario Tavella, President, Sotheby’s France and Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe, explains: “Sotheby’s relocation to the historic 83 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in the heart of Paris’s gallery and luxury sectors, and previously home to the renowned Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, underscores our commitment to France and highlights the growing importance of the French art and luxury markets to our company.
“Open, transparent, and convivial, with a café and wine cellar, our clients will be able to enjoy the excitement of our auctions not only in the auction room but also from the upper floors. Passersby will have a unique glimpse into the auction room through the full-length transparent windows giving onto the street. The new space will also be particularly suited for showcasing single-owner collections. It will be a destination in its own right, offering exhibitions, auctions, and masterclasses all year round. We look forward to welcoming our clients to this magnificent space, where tradition and innovation converge to celebrate the world of art, culture, and luxury.”
Located on the corner of Avenue Matignon, the buildings that once housed the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in 1925 have now been transformed into a 21st-century urban cultural site dedicated to art and luxury with Sotheby’s pioneering character and dynamism resonating with the avant-gardism of Bernheim-Jeune. The faithful restoration of existing buildings, the conservation of pre-existing Art Deco elements (wrought-iron and curved glass external doors, railings, brass handrails, mirrors, mosaics, wood cladding and parquet flooring), and the commissioning of new monumental chandeliers of rare elegance with subtle lighting effects, lend these spaces a patrimonial yet also innovative dimension. The architectural works have brought together a variety of artistic professions – from journeymen stonemasons to metalworkers, light designers and landscape architects – under the leadership of Architecturestudio, accustomed to this type of demanding renovation; and of Degaine, which took part in the restoration of the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris.
The architectural illumination of the building’s facades will enhance the presence and visibility of Sotheby’s in its environment in the heart of Paris.
With its welcoming transparent windows on Avenue Matignon and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the new Sotheby’s headquarters is open to the outside world. On the ground floor, the auction room and exhibition galleries are connected to the public space via the street windows. They invite amateurs to enter the building and take part in the auction experience – a clear departure from the customary image of “behind closed doors sales.” Access to the exhibition of works for auction are free and open to all. These spaces benefit from natural lighting provided by the atrium’s faceted glass roof, which extends over three levels.
This auction room, which seats 200 (240 m2), designed in collaboration with Architecturestudio and the team gathered around Mario Tavella, is characterized by its 1925 “Parisian chic” ambiance – accentuated by the choice of materials sourced from local distribution channels, such as Burgundy stone, eucalyptus wood and solid brass. The atrium’s suspended galleries, which open directly onto the auction hall in the style of “loges” [opera boxes], allow direct views from the various floors, including the café, making it unique, exceptional and immersive.
The exhibition rooms, spread across the ground floor and on three levels, cover a total surface area of 1,275 square meters. All feature natural lighting, with artificial light added to evenly illuminate the works. The quality of these spaces and their equipment make them adaptable and transformable.
On the upper floors is the Salon – a “luxury showroom” offering unique and exceptional objects for sale at fixed prices – another major Sotheby’s innovation in this luxury district. Warm, intimate spaces are also dedicated to private sales, which have been expanding rapidly for several years.
Clients can spend time in the wine cellar, with its tasting area, and in the first-floor café, where they will also be able to taste the rare wines.
Accessible, welcoming and adaptable spaces will enable the organization of concerts, parties, conferences, cocktail parties, fashion shows and dinners. State-of-the-art scenographic and technical equipment will enable Sotheby’s to showcase a wide range of works and objects.
In addition, the open-space offices of the Sotheby’s teams, who will be brought together, will optimize exchanges during auctions, exhibitions or scheduled events. The grouping of all staff under the same roof and in the same “house” will allow a smooth, speedy, and well-run operation, benefitting the clients.
The sales and exhibition areas, private lounges and café are all accessible to people with reduced mobility.
About the architecture of 83 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
Key figures
Total Exhibition space: 1,275 m2
Auction hall: 240 m2 (ground floor)
Café: 75m2 seating 30 people
More than 200m of linear exhibition space
Loggia surface area: 3x10m2
Showroom: 145 m2
A connected sales process
25 km of cable to guarantee digital prowess
Bio-sourced materials and a short supply chain
26 m3 of cut stone (150 blocks of St Maximin stone) for the new loggia facades
950 m2 of decorative wood cladding (eucalyptus)
600 m2 of solid oak parquet flooring
900 m2 of Buffon stone paving (Burgundy)
A commitment to openness and transparency
A 14-metre, 13-tonne beam to remove all the columns on the ground floor and support the courtyard façade
A new 65 m2 glass roof (600x1050x1270cm) with a 5m2 central glazing (800kg) measuring
245 x 320cm
123 exterior joinery systems in steel and wood-aluminum
Low-energy lighting as close as possible to the works of art
1700 automated lights and 1 km of LED ribbon to illuminate the artworks
*Since Sotheby’s opened its doors in Paris some 50 years ago, its business there has evolved dramatically, spurred by the opening up of the French auction market in 2001, along with the growth of international art fairs in the city. Its growth has been echoed in other centres, including New York, Hong Kong and London, which continues to enjoy a long legacy as an international hub, and remains Sotheby’s second largest sales centre. Sotheby’s teams in each of these cities work hand in glove to source great material for the market to which it is best suited. Paris has become a particularly strong sales centre for materials including Single owner collections of Decorative Art, Surrealism, Design, Asian Art. London and New York are important platforms for a wide range of categories: New York being strong for high value works of art across categories and works from great American estates, and London an important selling centre for a wide range of works – often high value – with strong international appeal. Each of these major sales centres stand together as very important centres, both for Sotheby’s business and in the wider cultural world.
About Sotheby’s
The world’s premier destination for art and luxury, Sotheby’s has been at the forefront of setting and influencing new trends while respecting its centuries-old identity. An auction house founded in 1744 in London, Sotheby’s is now present in 40 countries, with sales in London, New York, Geneva, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Dubai, Milan, Cologne and Paris.
Following Laure de Beauvau’s impetus in 2001 to open up the French market, Sotheby’s has established itself as the “House of Collections.” Since then, it has led the auctions of more than 130 prestigious collections and ensembles, from decorative arts to old paintings, from African arts to jewelry, from old paintings to modern art and impressionism, and from books and manuscripts to contemporary art and design.
Successes include, among others: the auction of the Château de Groussay furniture (1999) and works from the Hôtel Lambert (2022); the treasures of Ambroise Vollard’s collection (2010) and the Barbier-Mueller collection (2013); the auction of the Karl Lagerfeld (2003), Madeleine Castaing (2004), Félix Marcilhac (2014), Robert de Balkany (2016), Jacques Grange (2017), Pierre Bergé (2018), the Lalanne collection (2019 and 2022 as well as the Ribes (2019) and Hubert Guerrand-Hermès (2023) collections.
Many records have recently been set in Asian art, for a porcelain vase from the Qianlong period, and in modern art, for a Van Gogh (Scène de rue a Montmartre, 1887), a Seurat (Au divan japonais, ca. 1887-1888), a Modigliani (Portrait de Paul Alexandre, 1911-1912), and nine manuscripts by André Breton (Manifeste du Surréalisme, Poisson soluble, 7 cahiers d’écriture automatique), as well as a major painting by Joan Mitchell (La Grande Vallée XIII, 1983).
Sotheby’s has continued to develop and expand its activities to be as close as possible to its clients. In 1988, it created Sotheby’s Financial Services (SFS), which offers financing ranging from 1 million to 200 million dollars for its clients; the creation in 2005 of a private sales service which now generates more than a billion dollars a year; the acquisition in 2022 of Concierge Auctions, the world leader in luxury property auctions; and the acquisition of a majority stake in RM Sotheby’s (2022), the world’s leading auction house for classic cars.
In 2020, in response to the COVID pandemic, Sotheby’s was the first of the major auction houses to pivot the majority of its offering to online auctions. Covering more than 40 categories, online sales have become increasingly successful and attracted new generations of clients, totaling almost $575 million that year, up 30 percent on 2019, and peaking at $844 million in 2021.
Sotheby’s was the first to offer livestreamed sales in June 2020. Recognising the need to meet collectors where they are, Sotheby’s opened galleries in Palm Beach (October 2020), Aspen (June 2022), Monaco (July 2022) and Beverly Hills (October 2021).
This innovative spirit extends to every facet of the business, from the Sotheby’s new headquarters in Hong Kong, Paris and New York – all of which will be opening soon in emblematic buildings – to their renovation or the treatment of their facades.
The exhibition rooms’ facilities allow the staging of museum-quality exhibitions that attract huge audiences, such as the one devoted to Freddy Mercury in London in 2023, which enjoyed an unparalleled success; or the current “London: an Artistic Crossroads,” presenting 12 “masterpieces” from British museums over a month-and-a-half period in the British capital.
Sotheby’s also organizes sales of objects such as streetwear, pop and sports memorabilia, champagne, cars, watches – events that reach out to new audiences and are widely distributed via social media.
Stream live auctions and place bids in real time, discover the value of a work of art, browse sale catalogues, view original content and more at sothebys.com, and by downloading Sotheby’s app for iOS and Android.
