Lycée Blaise Pascal

Designed in the 1950s-1960s, Blaise Pascal high school is built on a hierarchical structured and organised base, both functional and airy. The building boasts a real urban setting.

Blaise-Pascal high school was founded in 1808 and was for boys only. It was first housed in the former Jesuits college on rue du Maréchal-Joffre, dating from 1675. The high school was completed in 1877-1880 by the construction of an annex: the Petit Lycée, on Avenue Carnot, by architect François-Louis Jarrier (1829-1881). This annex is now attached to Jeanne-d’Arc high school, built on a lower level from 1896 to 1899 to accommodate girls whose education had thus far been entrusted to nuns.

Following World War II, Blaise Pascal high school had become too small to house the pupils. It was therefore decided to build a new school on the site of the former Gribeauval barracks, close to the university. The work began in 1954 according to the project of architect Georges Noël (1907-1970), Prix de Rome award winner, who is also the architect of the Ambroise-Brugière and Sidoine-Apollinaire high schools and of the humanities university at Clermont-Ferrand. The official inauguration took place in 1962. The ten buildings within it are very different and are separated from one another so as to provide openings onto the city. The façades are made from sheets encrusted with ochre-red crushed stone, and the windows highlighted by white painted concrete. Volvic stone is used for the understructures which offset the gradient of the ground and the main entrance on Avenue Carnot. A relief by the sculptor Raymond Coulon (1917-2007) adorns the entrance.