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Origin and history

The school groups Condorcet and Jules-Ferry de Maisons-Alfort were built around 1927 to respond to the population growth of the commune, under the leadership of Mayor Léon Champion. Designed by architects André Dubreuil and Roger Hummel, the winners of the second Rome Grand Prix, these establishments incorporated innovative teaching concepts inspired by German and Dutch modernism, while maintaining a classical spatial organization. Their architecture, marked by stalled volumes and window windows evoking the "ship" style, symbolized a break with traditional, dark and austere schools.

The Condorcet school group, located in the Planets district, is distinguished by its scarlet tower surmounted by a clock visible at more than one kilometer, as well as its white and red glass pulp besson facades, made by Boulenger. Inside, murals, engraved stained glass windows (works by Pierre Lardin and Louis Barillet) and sinuous basins in the courtyard reflected a desire to combine aesthetics, hygiene and education. The classes, bathed in light thanks to large bay windows, opened on terraces designed as solariums for outdoor activities, illustrating the hygienist principles of the Interwar period.

The construction, carried out from 1930 to 1934, mobilized renowned craftsmen: the ironworks were signed Schwartz-Hautmont and Gilbert Poillerat, the school furniture by PBH Les Beaux Meubles and Michon-Pigé-Peigné, while painters such as Émile Beaume and Gustave Nebel decorated the walls. Inaugurated on February 17, 1935 by Pierre Laval and Léon Champion, Condorcet became an architectural model, widely published in specialized journals. Its cost increased to 11 million francs for an area of 14,832 m2, including separate schools for boys, girls and kindergartens.

To preserve this heritage, the Condorcet group was included in the additional inventory of historical monuments on 19 July 1994. In 2004, a commemorative plaque was affixed in memory of Simone Aizic, deported during the Second World War. Today, despite the partial deterioration of its glass paste coatings, the establishment remains a major testimony to the architectural and educational innovation of the 1930s in France.

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