École Spéciale d'Architecture

The École Spéciale d' Architecture (ESA) in Paris was founded in 1865 under the name École Centrale d'Architecture. It is the oldest pure school of architecture in France and the only private.

The foundation dates back to Eugène Viollet -le- Duc, the architectural education at the Ecole Imperiale des Beaux -Arts (now the École nationale supérieure des beaux -arts - ENSBA ) wanted to reform and adapt to the specific needs of the profession. The order given to him Napoléon III. for this purpose issued, he had to return because of the opposition of the school and its students.

Therefore, supported Viollet- le -Duc, along with others, including Ferdinand de Lesseps, the project of the engineer Émile Trélat to found a free school of architecture in order to break the monopoly of the Académie in architectural education at the École des beaux -arts.

1865, the school was opened under the direction of Émile Trélat in the Rue de l' Enfer in Paris with 59 students. In 1904 she pulls on the Boulevard Raspail, where it still has its headquarters.

1907 assumes Émile Trélat son Gaston the line; it follows Henri Probst 1929 (1892 degree at the ESA, 1902 Basic Prix de Rome at the École des beaux -arts ), which introduces new subjects: urban planning, landscape architecture, site organization, construction industry. Probst directs the school until 1959. Lecturers are at this time, for example, Auguste Perret, Robert Mallet- Stevens, Pierre Vago known students, Al ( fred ) Mansfeld, inter alia,

Director of ESA since 2007 Odile Decq. The school (2010) 675 students, who are taught by 80 teachers. Some 120 state-recognized diplomas are awarded each year; worldwide are approximately 10,000 graduates of the ESA operates.