Marché Saint-Germain, a covered market on the rue Lobineau since 1813

The Marché Saint-Germain, the covered market of the Odéon quarter, was built on the rue Lobineau between 1813 and 1817 to designs by Jean-Baptiste Blondel, one of Napoleon’s favourite architects. It replaced the old market and the Saint-Germain fair, which belonged to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where Abbot Guillaume Briçonnet had built a hall in 1511.

Blondel drew on Italian squares: four galleries enclose a rectangle of 6,900 m² and open through 112 stone arches onto a courtyard with a fountain and a statue of Peace. In 1860, Napoleon III had the courtyard roofed at the traders’ request.

In 1970 the city planned to demolish it. A defence association formed in 1971 and, after eighteen years of campaigning, a scheme respectful of the building was chosen in 1989. Arches dismantled in 1975 now stand in the Jardin des Philosophes in the Parc de Bercy. Remodelled, the market reopened in 2017 after two years of work.

Between the rues de Seine, Lobineau, Mabillon and Clément, in the 6th arrondissement, the 1,635 m² food hall sits beside large shops set beneath the arches, among them a butcher, a restaurant and, since 2022, the Epic grocery.