The École d'architecture de la ville et des territoires à Marne-la-Vallée is a fully accredited state-financed architecture school located in the east of Paris, France. It offers a bachelor of architecture in three years, and offers a new masters in town-planning and urban design.
Location
It is located in the Marne-la-Vallée University campus and offers seminars with the ENPC which is one of the historically acclaimed engineering schools in France. The school was created in 1998 and designed by architect Bernard Tschumi. It epitomizes all that has to be taken into consideration for architecture students and is made of several materials and theories: steel, concrete, glass. Cantilevers, open space and the "box within a box".
Student body
The school accommodates about 500 students. Most of the students are in first year, this figure slowly evolves to about 30- 50 students in the final fifth year.
Goals
The school's goals strongly focuses, as its name suggests, on the city and its context, its territory and environment. Many town-planning classes and theories overlap with the main studio. Studio work is one of the most important features of the school. The school, although very new, is rivaling with other architecture schools that have had a high visibility in quality, knowing that since the May 1968 student riots in France, La Villette and Belleville architecture schools symbolised a very strong separation with the Beaux Arts school, and has since maintained a distinct reputation since. The architecture school of the city and its territories is slowly changing this. It has some of the most influent and important architects that practice in France and abroad as its teachers.
Faculty
Some teachers had the chance to have been influenced by Ciriani, who was a disciple of Le Corbusier.
Yves Lion, architect, is one of the founders of the school.
David Mangin, architect and town planner, has widely published books on the matter. He is currently working on the Les Halles renovation in the center of Paris.
Students in their third or fourth years can pursue a yearly or half-year exchange programs throughout a selection of schools throughout the world. Countries involved : Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italia, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland, Portugal, Argentina, Israel, and Chile.
