A place of creation and innovation dedicated to the art and design professions

The Jardin des métiers d'Art et du Design (JAD) is a new space dedicated to art and design in Sèvres. This Hauts-de-Seine facility is co-piloted by Scintillo - Groupe SOS Culture, Make Ici and the Institut National des Métiers d'Art (INMA). Its vocation is to encourage dialogue between craftsmen and designers. It is housed in the Roux-Spitz and Brunau buildings at 6 Grande Rue in Sèvres. It brings together 20 workshops, an exhibition gallery, a conference space, coworking areas, meeting rooms and a Maker Lab. It's an architectural ensemble that's less than a century old, yet it's already steeped in history and listed as a historic monument! Its history began at the turn of the 1930s, when it was decided to expand and modernize the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Céramique, which was founded in 1879 under the impetus of Jules Ferry, then Minister of Education.

In the middle of the 18th century, the Manufacture de Sèvres had already been equipped with a Ceramics Museum since 1824. The purpose of the school was to provide training for craftsmen, engineers and professionals in the booming industry. It also aimed to foster innovation while preserving a heritage of exceptional manual skills - missions that are echoed in the foundations of JAD today!

The design of these new premises was entrusted to Michel Roux-Spitz, architect of the Bâtiments Civils et Palais Nationaux. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1920, this architect was part of the Rationalist tradition and Art Deco movement, and was also inspired by the work of Auguste Perret, whose use of reinforced concrete and post-and-beam structures freed up floor space. The complex he proposed in Sèvres comprises three buildings, named Buildings A, B and C, served by a paved alleyway. Building A housed theoretical teaching, while Building B housed the boarding school and living quarters, and Building C, now known as JAD, provided practical teaching. A Cbis extension, now the JAD showroom, was soon added to the program for the first expansion. The Second World War did not spare the Sèvres area or its Manufacture. The Renault factories on the Ile Seguin were heavily bombed, and numerous shells damaged what is now the Cité de la Céramique. Chance spared the JAD building, but after the armistice, major repairs were carried out all around, and in 1954, a new building designed by Félix Brunau was erected. It adjoins the Roux-Spitz building along its length, and communicates with its false twin via a few rare exits. Its facade features brickwork, punctuated by discreet, elegant chevrons. It features large windows with wooden shutters, and overlooks the lush Parc de Saint-Cloud.

The school remained in operation until 1969, when it moved to Limoges, and for some fifty years, the vocation of Building C changed with the passing users, without a clearly defined destiny being assigned to it, and deterioration accumulated.

It was in 2015, following a diagnosis of the building carried out on the initiative of the Hauts-de-Seine department, that a new future took shape. Patrick Devedjian, President of the Conseil Départemental des Hauts-de-Seine, signed a 30-year administrative long lease with the State, the site's owner, in 2019.

Marie-Suzanne de Ponthaud, Chief Architect of Monuments Historiques, and her agency were appointed to restore the buildings. The architects immersed themselves in the history of the site, and drew up a project that was both faithful to the building's rich past and respectful of its future. In each room, they revive the memory of past uses. They rigorously restored the tiled benches with their white ceramic washbasins, the wooden shutters, the drive mechanisms of the "mills" used to grind raw materials and prepare pasta, and the original elevator. But they also rethought existing spaces to accommodate new scenarios and future uses. The two Siamese buildings, which used to communicate via a very limited number of entrances, now feature a long corridor with doors opening onto each of the workshops to facilitate circulation and meetings. Building Cbis has now been stripped of its clerestory, gaining an unobstructed view and showroom status. It would seem that its generous proportions already predestined it to become the sober, open and luminous exhibition space we know today!

Finally, a clever set of solid oak steps connects the Roux-Spitz and Brunau buildings, which have been separated by a 90 cm difference in height since the second building was built. It gives this series of rooms a new function with its tiered seating, ideal for conferences and public debates. This balanced, harmonious dialogue between past, present and future is a key element in the Hauts-de-Seine department's project for JAD. Agence de Ponthaud was able to capture the spirit of the project with finesse, forging a lasting link between the site's heritage identity and its new daily life in the service of craftsmanship and design, while leaving the field of possible futures open.