The Former Hammam Saint-Paul is located at 4 rue des Rosiers, in the Marais, one of the main areas of Jewish memory in Paris. Its façade still preserves the painted inscription “Hammam Saint-Paul”, together with visible signs for “Sauna” and “Piscine” above the upper windows.
Public baths in the Marais
The building was constructed in 1856. In 1863, it began operating as a public bathhouse under the name Bains romains, or Roman Baths. At that time, many Parisian apartments did not have private bathrooms. Public baths, steam rooms and swimming pools were therefore part of the practical infrastructure of urban life.
The documentation describes the establishment as a public bathhouse, with a swimming pool, steam room, hydrotherapy room and later bathing cabins. It should not be confused with a mikveh. The available sources identify the place as a hammam and bathhouse, not as a Jewish ritual bath.
Former Hammam Saint-Paul and the Jewish Marais
Its Jewish significance comes from location and social use. The Former Hammam Saint-Paul stood in the heart of the Jewish Marais, around Rue des Rosiers and Place Saint-Paul, the area often called the Pletzl, from the Yiddish word for “little place”.
From the nineteenth century into the twentieth century, this part of the Marais was shaped by successive Jewish populations. Around Rue des Rosiers, Jewish residents opened shops and workshops, built synagogues, created associations and formed one of the best-known Jewish neighbourhoods of Paris.
In this context, the Hammam Saint-Paul belonged to the everyday geography of the Jewish Marais. Architectural and local history sources describe it as frequented by the Jewish community established in the neighbourhood from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the post-war decades.
The 1928 façade
In 1928, the architects Boucheron and Jouhaud modernized the façade. Their intervention gave the building its most recognizable surviving appearance, with red granito, yellow painted lettering and sculpted signs marking the sauna and swimming pool.
Municipal records also preserve details of the older bathing complex. By 1894, the site included a building on the street and a structure extending into the courtyard. In 1899, the baths were raised by one floor, under the architect Bastouil, to add bathing rooms.
The 1928 project for the “grands bains romains” shows a functional bathing circuit. It included a rest room on two levels, a pool, two sudatories and service areas arranged around a defined route through the building.
Closure and surviving trace
The establishment closed at the end of the 1980s, after around 130 years of use as a bathhouse. It was then converted into commercial and office space, and most of its interior fittings and decoration disappeared.
In 2009, the building became home to a COS clothing store. The interior has been modernized, but the façade still preserves the old Hammam Saint-Paul inscription, the sauna and swimming pool signs, the sculpted lion heads and the red granito surface associated with the 1928 modernization.
The Former Hammam Saint-Paul remains a surviving urban trace of the social life of the Jewish Marais, preserved today mainly through its façade at 4 rue des Rosiers.