Internat du lycée de jeunes filles, actuel lycée Marguerite de Navarre

English translation

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History

The boarding house of the girls' secondary school, rue de Vauvert, at Bourges, was constructed from 1950 to 1952, under the direction of architect Jacques Barge, whose best-known work is the church of Sainte-Odile, in Paris (1935-1946). He is also the author of the Social Centre of Châteauroux (1936-1941). In the difficult post-war period, the architect realized the Vauvert boarding house in the dual concern for execution as careful as possible and a search for economic solutions. Various processes of industrial prefabrication were attempted. Jacques Barge stated that he conceived this edifice as a prototype, a model for architecture to come. The boarding house is a daring achievement through the implementation of new techniques, devised and developed specially for the execution of this complex: the application of a regular grid and a simple framework of prefabricated reinforced concrete beams. To economic imperatives were added the precise requirements of the hygienist programme for school buildings. The Vauvert boarding house is the first educational establishment realized according to the instructions of the Ministry of National Education of 28 January 1949. The economic implementation of quality materials, prefabrication and the observance of elementary principles of comfort, made possible a New school, remarkable for its constructive solutions and the study of its equipment. The site plan forms a comb composition, functional, which gives the advantages of pavilion living while maximizing surveillance and economy of operation. To have the best possible orientations, services and hygiene rooms are aligned on the north façade while the six perpendicular pavilions, devoted to study rooms, dining halls and dormitories, are oriented east-west. Geometric rigour, references to Antiquity and the Renaissance, are evident in the long monumental façade of rue de Vauvert, where verticals and horizontals play against each other, solids and voids, reliefs, opposition between surfaces in ashlar stonework and simply pecked stone. The master of works' desire to inscribe his pilot achievement within the framework of tradition is also expressed in the decoration where a pedagogical concern is affirmed. The architect and the director of the establishment entrusted the decoration to teachers of the School of Applied Arts of Bourges. Ceramicists Jean and Jacqueline Lerat created a series of terracotta medallions evoking exemplary figures of French women. A canvas by Henri Malvaux, representing young girls in an orchard, was to give the children the certainty of a cheerful and invigorating stay. Awakening or Young woman combing herself, stone sculpture by Marcel Gili ornaments one of the rose gardens of the park.