Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The outdoor school of Suresnes, built between 1932 and 1936 by architects Eugène Beaudouin and Marcel Lods, was commissioned by Mayor Henri Sellier to school children with tuberculosis or respiratory fragility. Inspired by the international hygienist movement, the project aimed to provide a healthy, airy and sunny environment with glazed pavilions and outdoor educational terraces. The site, located on the southern slope of Mount Valérien, enjoyed an optimal orientation and a park of two hectares preserved.

Inaugurated in 1936, the school was hailed as a model of architectural and educational innovation, combining medical follow-up, physical activities and adapted schooling. Its eight pavilions connected by galleries, heated by the ground and equipped with movable glass walls, allowed children to follow the courses indoors and outdoors according to the weather. A giant globe, classified as a historical monument in 2002, served as an emblematic educational tool. The establishment, which was run by the municipality and then by the state from 1954 onwards, housed up to 300 children before its closure in 1996.

Ranked a historic monument in 2002, the school illustrates the legacy of the Garden Cities and social policies of the inter-war period. After decades of degradation, his future has fluctuated between rehabilitation projects (the museum of terrorism in 2021, abandoned in 2025) and risks of destruction. Archives and objects related to its history are kept at the Suresnes Museum of Urban and Social History and the National Museum of Education in Rouen.

Architects Beaudouin and Lods, pioneers of modern architecture, have applied avant-garde principles: modularity of spaces, use of concrete and glass, and landscape integration. Their collaboration with the teacher Louis Boulonnais and their visit to the school of Cliostraat in Amsterdam influenced the design. The main building, 200 metres long, and its cubic pavilions with opening glass façades reflect this search for light and hygiene.

The school also marked local social history thanks to figures such as Simonne Lacapère, director and deputy mayor in the 1970s. It developed adaptations for children with disabilities and contributed to a UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. Despite its structural decline (problems of sealing since 1979), the site remains a symbol of educational and architectural utopias of the twentieth century.

External links