VISITE GUIDÉE
Automne Hiver – Fall Winter 2017-2018
M emories of a hotel Hundreds of archives now decorate the walls of the Beau-Rivage Palace. So many living testaments to the past, elegantly presented in frames and giving passing guests pause for thought.
I
t is such a great idea!” exclaims Samantha Filipinetti. “These days, there are very few hotels that have kept their archives; it’s the first thing they get rid of, along with the old decor.” The corridors and staircases of the Beau-Rivage Palace are now hung with almost a thousand frames containing texts, numbers and images that trace the history of the hotel and the events that have occurred here. “It was François Dussart, then General Manager of the Beau-Rivage Palace, who contacted me concerning this somewhat singular mission,” adds the woman responsible for highlighting these precious traces of the past. Granddaugther of Martha Armleder (owner family of the Richemond Hotel in Geneva) and an art aficionado, Samantha Filipinetti spent part of her life in the family’s luxury hotel. And she doesn’t hesitate to compare the memory of this type of hotel to the soul. And so it is the soul of the Beau-Rivage Palace that she has methodically explored in order to reveal its substance to the guests. HISTORICAL TESTIMONIES
“I formed a small but highly skilled team to undertake this meticulous assignment, as each page selected had
to be scanned and the images had to be printed on high-quality paper before being framed and hung on the walls,” she explains. Fortunately, the archives had already been arranged by the Swiss Hotel Archives Foundation. They were moved to an office – 30 cubic metres of reading before one’s very eyes! “All I had to do was to read it all,” she continues. She needed almost six months to sort through all these archives and select what she felt would make interesting exhibits. Now, as they adorn the hotel corridors, the archives reflect the bigger historical picture by telling the story of the BeauRivage Palace. Everything related to the negotiations concerning the borders of Turkey has thus been hung opposite the Sandoz Room, where the negotiations took place until the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923. Samantha Filipinetti has put the famous guests of honour in the corridors leading to the bar, in the Miyako restaurant and in the Café Beau-Rivage. “I have also included the members of my family who stayed here and I enjoyed bringing them back to a luxury hotel!” she quips. On the left after the reception, the walls of the staircase leading to the meeting room are filled with the original architectural plans for the construction of the hotel.
ANECDOTES OF EVERY KIND
The corridors of the six floors in the west wing of the hotel carry numerous anecdotes relating to hotel life since it was built, beginning with the problems that punctuated the construction work, notably the workers’ strikes. Subsequent staff problems and demanding client relationships also have their place on the walls. Some anecdotes attest to the arrival of central heating and electricity. Others show restaurant menus, including so-called diet menus which today would make us all put on more kilos than we take off! The frames also contain price lists – for the rooms, food and wine. Samantha Filipinetti has also chosen to exhibit the garden archives and the gradual acquisition of the adjacent properties at the prices of the time. Finally, there are numerous photos which reveal life behind the scenes in a luxury hotel, such as milk deliveries to the main entrance by horse-drawn cart. The frames are now a permanent addition to the hotel decor and more will follow with the addition of new archives as the years pass. A living memory, open to all, to be discovered on the walls of the Beau-Rivage Palace. R EG A R D S n °1 2 47