The history of Hotel du Louvre Antananarivo

Before 1931 - the building was built out of brick and had only one floor and accommodated the ‘Grands Magasins du Louvre de Paris’, selling articles coming from France. With increasing demands of customers they had to renovate the building.

So the Directors of the Louvre, Barbier Juge and Loos called upon the consultant Gustave Eiffel who was in Madagascar for his services at that time he was building a bridge visible in Ambanja - in front of Nosy Be.

The project is the construction of a 6 storeys  building comprising a basement, a ground floor and 4 levels. The project was prepared in France in 1928 and was sent by ship.

Unfortunately, the ship sank and another expedition was due to arrive in Antananarivo at the end of 1928.

When the shipment arrived all the products were stored at 100 meters away on the road leading to the French Embassy during the construction.

As for the construction, the brick building was demolished and the basement was thus added. Work of the basement lasted 4 months (beginning at April 1929)

The assembling of the Eiffel structure lasted one year and the hard works ended in August 1930.

The opening of the new store was done in February 1931 with the logo ‘Grands Magasins du Louvre of Paris - Barber, Juge & Loos.

In 1936, the logo was changed to ‘Printemps de Madagascar’ till 1960 when all the new French fashion and releases were present.

In 1960, ‘Prisunic’ settled down and opened its first shop in Antananarivo in the Eiffel building.

In 1990, Champion replaced Prisunic till 2002. Since 2002, Shoprite has taken over the first floor and the basement.

Since 1988, the Hotel du Louvre has taken over the storage area and the apartments of 1931 to 1996. In 1996 the historical building was converted into a three stars hotel.

The Louvre opened its doors in February 1998, in this historical monument...