The Reims school Franklin-Roosevelt is an institution more than a title, by its ability to host more than 2,000 students, by its science and technology, including 14 preparatory classes, formations and its history, the small cutting the great! Within its walls was signed the Act of surrender of the German army, may 7, 1945, followed two days later in Berlin of a second signature imposed by Stalin. Requisitioned by the Allied forces in August 1944, the institution was by its location and its configuration to host the headquarters of General Eisenhower. Located behind the station and built in the 1920s by rémois architect Hippolyte Portevin, this practical school former trade and industry includes its buildings in the square on a vast Court, worthy of a field of Mars: a real stronghold walls of brick and controlled access. Located in a corner of the quadrangle, the historic room ("war-room"), removed to the operation of the lycée, pavoise on the street for a permanent commemoration (currently closed for work).
Not be frozen by the history, the facility became lycée post-war, contains intense activity, dubbed these last two years of campaign work in occupied areas. These large manoeuvres (EUR 14 million) helped to adapt the place with the requirements of education, by introducing into the enclosure missing equipment and comfort and security in accordance with the standards. "The renovation of the high school Franklin Roosevelt asked to at the outset the issue of the spirit of the place and its adaptation to the required features", summarizes the architect Jean-Michel Jacquet, retained at the end of a consultation in 2004. The difficulty of the exercise are as listed: "A dense urban site without any land availability, a closed form, and a binding architecture, with 2,200 students present on the spot." The challenge was architectural and logistical. A strategy to date and one-off interventions responds to preserve the heritage as well as the well-being of the occupants. "Design to work, the operation was carried out in consultation with the administration of the school and the body teacher (250 people) by informing on all stages of the construction in favour of joining the project and the appropriation of the new created spaces", says Jean-Michel Jacquet. The extension is focused on the central area of 7,700 m2, planted with chestnut trees as it should. Both playground and sports field, this place in the heart of the high school was already operating as an agora. All streams are converge, connected to the gallery that belt on the first floor buildings and form yard below. The architect has respected the integrity and multiplied the functionality. Totalling 6,000 m2 of construction, nine program is is housed in three separate volumes implanted places devoid of trees and grafted onto the Gallery of the built environment. Each identifies a new function: the media library (CDI) surmounted by computer rooms, the 250-seat theatre articulated at the Multipurpose room, the yard capped electrical and optical laboratories. Patio was dug to contain two high volumes from the media library and Auditorium anchored at low level in the gauge of the gallery. The perception of the Central Court is thus preserved brick to the same framework, and its design enriched Prism inserted correctly. A fourth nine volume takes place in the backyard to House offices and service spaces. The form treated these grafts pre-paid a rational construction is consistent to the existing. Materials are limited and forge unity of intervention: sails of raw concrete of stripping for plans and curved walls, floor height glazing, pivoting panels of clear wood for the occultation of some rooms and screens of sheet openwork grindstone for sunshades. Reproduced in the pediments, they provide the Visual continuity of foliage Sundial Court by their colour and their plant ground. The intrusion of these volumes environment enhances the original publication, without altering the austere architecture. The history of the Roosevelt high school Franklin continues with this peaceful occupation of his court.
