Assouline book charts history of Casino de Monte-Carlo
By Zak Jackson, MonacoViews Editorial
A new Assouline coffee-table book traces the Casino de Monte-Carlo's path from 19th-century gaming house to the heart of Monte-Carlo, launched with SBM on Tuesday.
Société des Bains de Mer unveiled a new book on the Casino de Monte-Carlo this week, produced with luxury publisher Assouline and titled Casino de Monte-Carlo: The Grand Art of Gaming. The volume traces the building's evolution from its 19th-century origins as a gaming house into the anchor of the district that bears its name, moving room by room through spaces familiar to anyone who has walked the Place du Casino, from the Atrium to the Salle Europe.
For residents and regular visitors, the book offers a rare look behind the gilded facade that most only glimpse from the terrace or the gaming floor. SBM has long guarded the interiors as part of its brand, so a detailed visual record of rooms like the Salle Europe, with its painted ceilings and period detailing, gives a fuller picture of a building that shaped Monte-Carlo's identity long before the Formula 1 paddock or the modern towers arrived.
The launch also reflects SBM's growing interest in documenting its own heritage as it continues to redevelop parts of the Monte-Carlo quarter, including the area around the Casino Square. Coffee-table publications of this kind rarely change daily life in the Principality, but this one adds to the limited archive of serious visual documentation of a site that remains central to how Monaco is seen abroad.