Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The National Institution of the Deaf of Bordeaux, also called Castéja, was founded in 1786 under the leadership of Archbishop Jérôme Champion de Cicé and led by Roch-Ambroise Sicard, disciple of the Abbé de Lséée. Initially mixed, she welcomed deaf children from the South West in the Saint-Seurin district. After several moves (Capdeville Street, convent des Minimes, rue des Religieuses), the state separated girls and boys in 1859, reserving Bordeaux for deaf or hard of hearing girls. Mixity was suppressed for eugenic reasons, fearing marriages between deaf people and hereditary transmission of deafness.

The construction of the present building began in 1861 under the direction of the departmental architect Joseph-Adolphe Thiac, finishing in 1870. Inspired by the Italian Renaissance, the quadrangular building (158 m x 60 m) incorporates unique decorative motifs, such as a typing alphabet carved on the walls of the first floor. A statue of the abbot of the Sword dominates the porch, framed by medallions honoring the founders. The chapel, decorated by J. Villiet in 1865 in a style inspired by Fra Angelico, forms the central axis of the building, surrounded by courses distributing classrooms and boarding school.

Requisitioned by the Germans in 1940, the site became central police station in Bordeaux from 1949 to 2003. The institution, once again a mixed institution under the name of the National Institute of Deaf Youth, moved to Gradignan in 1958. Ranked a historic monument in 2010, the building was sold by the state in 2014 under the Duflot I law. His rehabilitation (2015–2016) revealed an exceptional ancient necropolis, perhaps linked to Justinian's plague. Today, the site welcomes accommodations, a hotel and a school, combining heritage and modernity.

The architecture of the building reflects the norms of Thiac's public buildings, with an eclectic central forebody and a pillared vestibule leading to the chapel. The interior courts once organized educational and residential spaces. The sculptor Louis-André de Coëffard (1818–87) made the statue of the abbé of Lepée and the medallions of the founders, while the signs of the typing alphabet, engraved in frieze, symbolize the educational vocation of the institution. These artistic details soften the geometric rigor of the facade.

The site embodies the evolution of educational and social policies towards deaf people in France. Founded in a philanthropic spirit in the 18th century, it became a tool of state control in the 19th century, with the genre segregation imposed in 1859. Its transformation into a police station, then its contemporary rehabilitation, illustrates the urban and memorial changes of Bordeaux. The excavations of 2016 added a major archaeological dimension, linking the history of the institution to the much older one of the city.

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