| École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Versailles | |
| Established: | 1969 |
| Type: | Public state university |
| Director: | Jean-Christophe Quinton |
| Academic Staff: | 119 |
| Students: | 1224 (222 foreign students) |
| City: | Versailles |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
| Website: | http://www.versailles.archi.fr |
The École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles commonly referred to as the ENSAV, is a leading French architectural school located at the ancient stables of the Versailles Palace. It is an associate member of the University Paris-Saclay. The pedagogical aim of the National Architecture School of Versailles is to provide an intense experience in the architectural arts while developing questions of architecture in the fields of building, city and regional planning. The school prepares students using diverse professional exercise methods and its specially known for its urban design teachings.
The school is listed among the 50 best European architecture schools according to Domus since the beginning of this ranking established in 2013.[1]
The Léav is the research center of the school. It has participated in the foundation of the PATRIMA laboratory. The latter is a member of the SHS (University of Paris-Saclay) doctoral school.
LADRHAUS and GRAI are two other research laboratories of the ENSAV.
It organizes public conferences of researchers and theoreticians: Jean-Pierre Chupin, William J.R. Curtis, Antoine Grumbach ...
Board members: Jean Castex, David Mangin, Frédéric Borel, Gilles Clément, Jorge Orta, Antoine Picon, Paola Viganò, Jean-Philippe Vassal.
The ENSAV publishes books and research conclusions via its edition unit.
Urban Forms: Death and Life of the Urban Block
This major publication by Jean Castex, Philippe Panerai and Jean-Charles Depaule (teachers of the school) had its first edition in French in 1977. It has been recently translated and edited in English for the first time in 2003 with an additional postscript.
The school has agreements with more than 36 universities worldwide. Each year, the ensav organises international workshops around the world (Isaphan, Dakar, Kyoto, Rome, Rio, Delft, Shangai, Casablanca...).
In 2016, the school collaborates with the EPFL to build an international experimentation project : "HOUSE 1/12 cities". They created a wood structure built at the Lausanne campus and then in Versailles. More than 200 people took part in this project.
Each year, a renowned artist is invited to conduct a four-week workshop with students. Past editions have been supervised by Hans Walter Muller, Tadashi Kawamata, Campana brothers, Miquel Barcelo, Lucy et Jorge Orta or Tomas Saraceno.
The ENSAV offers a dual master's degree entitled "Ecological Urbanism" with the Tongji University in China.[3]
The ENSAV hosts and organizes various international events :
- Modern art exhibitions in its own museum : La Maréchalerie.
- Lectures : Kengo Kuma, Christian de Portzamparc, Marc Barani, Odile Decq, David Basulto (Archdaily founder), Chaix et Morel, X-TU architects,
Rudy Riciotti, Frederic Borel, Abraham Poincheval, Mathieu Lehanneur, Paul Andreu, David Van Severen[4] (teacher at the school), Jakob + Macfarlane, Felice Varini, Clément Blanchet (former student), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster,, Régis Roudil (invited teacher at the school) Laurent Grasso, Patrick Bouchain, Jean Rodet (former student), Duncan Lewis, Yann Kersalé, Klaus Pinter, Nicolas Dorval-Bory (teacher at the school), Richard Copans, Djamel Klouche (teacher at the school), Jean-Paul Jungmann, Bertrand Lamarche, Thomas Raynaud (teacher at the school), Mark Alizart, Kasper T.Toeplitz, Bruno Latour, Jean Castex, NP2F, Pascal Gontier (former student), Sébastien Martinez Barat (teacher at the school), Tanja Herdt, Matthias Armengaud[5] (AWP, former student and teacher at the school), Éric Lapierre...[6]- Design Modeling Symposium : DSM17. This symposium offered classes, lectures, exhibitions and workshops under the topic "Humanizing digital reality".[7] Some of the lecturers were Antoine Picon, Carlo Ratti, Arthur Mamou Mani, Philippe Rahm (ENSAV teacher).[8]
- Bap ! First Paris region biennale in 2019.