In Situ (Jul 2021)
Des œuvres d’art dans l’architecture scolaire : l’exemple des lycées bourguignons et comtois
Abstract
The post-war demographic context (baby-boom), along with the political will to democratise and increase the duration of compulsory education, led the French State to build a large number of institutions throughout the country. Standardisation, prefabrication and centralising engineering were triumphant. This unprecedented construction undertaking, and for a time, truly euphoric, could almost boast about having no architect. That is why it offers a particularly topical prism for observing this unlikely “arranged marriage” between the functional requirement of prefabricated concrete and the artists invited by the law to produce works there. These artists were initially selected by the State, then by the regions, new sponsors as a result of the country’s decentralisation.In this article, we present a study of the artworks of the so-called “1%” (France’s One Percent for Art legal provision) in the high schools of Franche-Comté and Burgundy regions during the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21th century.These artworks are varied and interact in diverse manners with the places for which they were commissioned: from the merge, in which the work, so to speak, become one with the architecture, to the moveable work- likely to be transported from the place for which it was created – and to the landscape creation. The profile of the artists - sculptor, painter, ceramist, stain glass artist – and the method of their appointment evolved during this period of time which witnessed the disappearance of the Prix de Rome, the criticism of the notion of “State artist” as well as the emergence of new local powers. Standing to the test of time, the fate of these works is variable.
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