Casino Municipal

This Art Deco beauty almost didn't survive. By the late nineteen eighties, it was virtually abandoned. The municipality seriously considered demolishing it. Knocking the whole thing down. It was saved at the absolute last minute in nineteen ninety-two when it was classified in the Supplementary Inventory of Historical Monuments. That classification made demolition legally impossible. Without it, you'd be looking at a car park or a condo block right now.

The casino you see was built in nineteen twenty-nine by architect Alfred Laulhe. But this site has been entertaining people since Napoleon the Third's time. In eighteen fifty-eight, Napoleon built the Bains Napoleon here, baths for the fashionable set. That was replaced by an Art Nouveau casino, which was then replaced by this Art Deco one. Three buildings, three eras, one site, all dedicated to the idea that wealthy people need somewhere glamorous to spend money by the sea.

Laulhe's design was ambitious. The building combined gaming rooms, reception halls, a theatre, a swimming pool, and an external gallery promenade stretching along the Grande Plage. That long facade facing the ocean is pure Art Deco confidence. Clean lines, geometric patterns, the whole vocabulary of the style applied to a building designed for pleasure.

Architect Francois Lombard later adapted the interior for the modern era while preserving the facade. The exterior is essentially what you would have seen in nineteen twenty-nine, minus some weathering.

Stand back and look at it alongside the Grande Plage. The beach, the casino, the ocean. This is the postcard image of Biarritz. The fact that it was nearly demolished is one of those stories that makes you grateful someone filled out the right paperwork at the right time.