École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts

You are approaching the site of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, a landmark that served for centuries as the ultimate arbiter of artistic taste in France. The school occupies the former grounds of the Petits Augustins monastery, a location that once held a curious collection of architectural fragments salvaged from French churches and chateaux during the chaos of the French Revolution. These salvaged ruins were gathered here in a makeshift museum, and they later became the foundational inspiration for the campus architecture you see today. Many of the building facades and decorative elements incorporated into the school were rescued from sites that would otherwise have been lost to history, turning the school itself into a permanent exhibition of French structural heritage.