Lambert, Guy
The architecture of the Écoles Nationales Professionnelles in the interwar years: The pragmatism of a centralised policy
- 2018.
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During the interwar years, the Ecoles Nationales Professionnelles (ENP) developed rapidly as a result of the ambitious 1925 technical education plan to increase the number of schools and modernise them. The ENPs were not entirely new creations but rather the result of the “nationalisation” of pre-existing institutions; a similar pragmatism and economic arguments prevailed when it came to refurbishing the premises, as the appropriation of existing buildings was preferred to building new ones. In the interests of rationalisation, the centralised policies implemented by the secretary for technical education first assigned responsibility for the construction process to a consultant architect who played a pivotal role. But with the measures which the new ministère de l’Éducation Nationale implemented after 1932 to homogenise construction procedures, the design of technical schools fell back into the overall framework for other school buildings.