The Collège de France is located in three buildings at 52 rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, which the École Polytechnique previously owned in the 19th century and until the mid-20th century. A third building, built from 1946 to 1948 and renovated from 1988 to 1990, was added to this set and distributed around a garden.
Due to the absence of interior circulation between the three main buildings and because the only existing entrance, rue Lartigue, opened onto this bucolic space, the garden, with its lawn planted with a magnificent cypress, a medlar tree and a palm tree as well as many shrubs, held a special place for the occupants of the premises as well as for the visitors.
Institute of Civilizations | Moussafir Architectes | © image courtesy of Moussafir Architectes
Closed to the public in May 2016, completely emptied of its two hundred and fifty occupants, its offices, common areas and of its seventeen kilometers of collections during the six months that followed, the so-called “Cardinal Lemoine” site, of which the College de France is the contractor, started work in January 2017.
The facades and roofs have been renovated to enhance the thermal insulation of the buildings, as well as their aesthetic appeal. Box carrels, workspaces accessible by reservation and able to accommodate one or two people, have been created on the courtyard facade, directly above buildings A and B. The various buildings have been the subject of large-scale structural work to level all the floors and allow a “U” circulation on the entire site, floor by floor: no need to cross a single step nor to go down again in the garden to go up in another wing, as it was the case previously. Once an access card has been established at the reception, everyone will be able to circulate throughout the site, depending on the rights associated with their card.
Institute of Civilizations | Moussafir Architectes | © image courtesy of Moussafir Architectes
The monumental stairwell of building C has disappeared, replaced by floor areas on the first and third floors, dedicated to the reception of the Far East and Ancient Near East poles. All the windows have been replaced to make the site more comfortable thermally and acoustically using not one but 4 OTIIMA frame systems: 38 Plus, 54 Fusion, 54 Classic, and Open.
The heating and electricity distribution installations have been completely modernized. This space’s delicate metal architecture is fully highlighted, and its glass roof has been completely restored. The architect, Jacques Moussafir, chose the arabesque for the interior decoration of the site for its sophisticated and airy graphics. The visitor will find it, for example, on the carpets placed in the center of the reading rooms, the colors of which vary according to the poles, on the ceiling of these same rooms, and on the roof of the glazed galleries built on the ground floor, along the façade. interior of buildings.
The architect has assigned a color to each of the poles: blue for the Mediterranean World, red for Social Anthropology, purple for the Far East, and green for the Ancient Near East. It is echoed on the ground by the terrazzo crystals in each reading room, as well as in the circulation areas that frame the carpets and worktables.
