i n s t i t u t e   o f  a r t  &   d e s i g n 
 

ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS - PARIS, FRANCE
1819 - 1968
 
 

		Newly formed in 1819, the Ecole des Beaux Arts was formulated after being transformed between 1793 and 1819 from the schools of the Academie Royal de Peinture et Scuplture and the Academie Royale d'Architecture.  Royal academies proliferated during the reign of Louis XIV as a primary mechanism by which to centralize the power of the king.  The academic doctrine was, in the 18th Century sense, rationalist; it was characterized by a complete trust in reason.  The Academy sought to evolve universal principles in architecture.  Prior to the Revolution, the building had been the Couvent des Petits-Augustins.  This monastery, which like all other church property was seized by the revolutionary government of 1789, became the Musee des Monument Francais of the archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir.  Lenoir's museum did not last long, when in 1816 Louis XVIII commanded a royal order that it be closed and the buildings and grounds be donated to the conglomeration of the arts - the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
PALAIS D'ETUDES		Before the extension, the Ecole was restricted to the Monastery which comprised a chapel, a cloister, and a garden. Francois Debret, a maitre d'atelier of the Ecole, designed a large building to occupy the only open area of the monastic garden as well as the narrow three-story Batiment des Loges (lower left on plan) for the sequestration of students during competitions.  Although all the foundations were in place, only its southern wing was complete in 1832 when he was replaced by Felix Duban who reorganized the entire site, redesigning the Palais d'Etudes (plan at right), containing a library, a ceremonial amphitheater and a museum of casts and student work, and arranging the spaces around the buildings as a series of courtyards defined by the remnants of Lenoir's museum, most notably the "Arc de Gaillon."