Founded in 1872, the Paris Institute of Political Studies, universally known as Sciences Po, has its historic headquarters on the Left Bank, just off the boulevard Saint-Germain. Since the turn of the millennium, the school—set up to train France’s political elite—has expanded rapidly, adding all sorts of disciplines to the diplomas it awards (law, journalism, business administration, etc.) and opening satellite campuses in the French provinces. As a result of this growth, the school’s Paris premises had to expand too, occupying a number of owned and rented buildings. But in January, the inauguration of a brand-new Paris campus, near its historic home, has allowed the school to shed its rental properties and concentrate research activities and newer diploma programs together on one site.
Sciences Po made the costly decision to remain in the heart of Paris in 2016, when it acquired a 150,000-square-foot former monastery, later occupied by the French army, for €93 million ($106 million in today's dollars); the total cost of creating the new campus, including the €42 million ($48 million) spent on converting the buildings, is estimated at an eyewatering €190 million ($216 million). To secure a fixed price and completion date for the conversion, the school turned to a consortium led by a real-estate developer, selected in a 2018 competition. Headed by Sogelym Dixence, the group included four architects: Paris-based Wilmotte & Associés, a big French firm with a reputation for prestige projects that is led by 73-year-old Jean-Michel Wilmotte; the far smaller Franco-Japanese office Moreau Kusunoki, founded in 2011 by Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki, which achieved international fame in 2015 with its winning design for the never-built Guggenheim Helsinki; heritage specialist Pierre Bortolussi; and the U.S.-based Sasaki Associates, who left the project before construction began. All four firms drew up the master plan together; when it came to the architectural design phase, Wilmotte oversaw conversion of the existing buildings, Moreau Kusunoki designed the new interventions, and Bortolussi supervised restoration of the façades and other historic features. “As well as an established firm like Wilmotte, Sogelym wanted a young office,” says Moreau. “We were there to give some extra stimulation.”
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