Gap: the former Grand Hotel Lombard at the rhythm of the roaring twenties
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It was in the heart of the Roaring Twenties and the interwar period that the Grand Hôtel Lombard de Gap was built for Pierre Lombard by the Grenoble architect Georges Serbonnet between 1924 and 1946 in the district of the station. Emblematic building of the city, its imposing architecture mixes the codes and decorations «Art Nouveau» and «Art Deco» both in facade and on the interior spaces like its sumptuous vestibule with its mosaics and its elevator of time. A sober and prestigious establishment, which concentrated the most modern technologies until the mid-1960s before its sale and transformation into private apartments in 1971. A place of passage also many personalities like Edith PIAF in 1959 but also the seat of the occupying forces during the second world war. The former Grand Hotel Lombard now houses on the ground floor, the premises of the Agency for Development of the Hautes-Alpes (Property of the Department) installed in particular in the old lounges and in the large dining room. On the occasion of these 40th European Heritage Days, around the theme of «Living Heritage» and at the dawn of the hundredth anniversary of its construction, the Lombard will be unveiled all day long on Saturday, September 16, 2023 at the rhythm of the Roaring Twenties. A nod to the past and the future with the program, an exhibition of photos and archives on the building, tours of the ground floor (hall and premises of the Agency for Development of the Hautes-Alpes, only spaces accessible to the public), a presentation of cars and vintage cycles with a musical aperitif on the terrace at midday animated by the high-alpine group «Tchava Genza». A unique annual event to re-appropriate for a few hours, the past of this historic building once prized by Gapençais, where the shadows of many personalities of the arts, sport or politics still hover.