Castel Béranger and Guimard's Auteuil

Street · Auteuil (16th)Paris,France

A block of Paris flats Guimard designed down to the letterboxes, its curling iron gate winning the city's first facade prize and the Métro commission.

Castel Béranger is a block of flats in Auteuil, and its gate is what stops people on the pavement. The green cast iron is worked into curling shapes that everyone has called sea horses since the building went up, though nobody has established what they were meant to be. Hector Guimard finished the building in 1898 and designed every part of it himself: the brick and stone front, the gate, the door handles, the wallpapers, the carpets, the letterboxes. Neighbours called it the Deranged Castle. Guimard kept building in Auteuil for another fifteen years, so the streets around hold half a dozen more of his houses within a few hundred metres. It is a walk of bay windows, iron balconies and front doors no two of which are alike. All of them are private flats. You look from the pavement, and the gates, the balconies and the front doors are the whole visit. The building won the city's first prize for a new facade in 1898, and the underground railway hired Guimard for its station entrances soon after.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The buildings are scattered, not in a row — They stand on several streets around this one, so the walk is a loop rather than a straight line, and a couple are easy to miss.
Photograph the details rather than the whole building — The facade is tall and the street is narrow, so the gate, the balcony ironwork and the tiled panels are what a photograph can actually hold.
Look for his signature — Guimard cut his own name into the stonework of the buildings he designed, usually low down near a corner, which is how you confirm one on this walk.
This is a residential quarter and it stays quiet — Auteuil is a long way from the tourist city in feel as well as in distance, so expect residents, school runs and nothing arranged for visitors.

Things to do

1
Read the gate, then the front, one storey at a time
Start at the green cast-iron gate: no shape in it is repeated, every curl, bar and boss is different, and looking through it at the courtyard is as far as visitors get. The two large forms at eye height have been called sea horses for a century, though nobody has established what they were meant to be. Then cross the road and take the front one storey at a time, as the wall changes from brick to stone to glazed tile to ironwork, with almost nothing lining up with the storey below. At the top the roofline is shaped quite unlike the uniform Paris roofs of the time, and the plain buildings on either side show it.
2
Walk the other Guimard houses
The surrounding streets hold half a dozen more of his buildings within a short walk. Look for the same habits in each one. The ironwork has curves that are all different instead of repeating one pattern, the window openings are not simple rectangles, and Guimard's own name is cut into the stone low down near the entrance.
3
Find the Métro entrance at Porte Dauphine
It stands a short way north-west of here, and it is the best thing on this walk. It is the only Guimard Métro entrance that still stands where he built it with its glass canopy in place. The iron is green, the panes are amber and the lettering is his own. Stand at the top of the steps and look at how the pieces of ironwork are joined.