Biermans-Lapôtre foundation

The Fondation Biermans-Lapôtre is a residence hall belonging to the Cité international academic of Paris, located in the 14 {{E}} district of Paris, on the edges of the Boulevards of the Marshals close to the Parc Montsouris. The House is near the Stade Charlety and with some steps of the station University residence of the RER B. The House is also served by the Ligne 3 of the Parisian tram.

Biermans-Lapotre foundation: House of the Belgian Students

The Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation, which firstly lodges the Belgian and Luxembourg students of higher education continuing their studies in Paris, is the first foreign house decided on the site of the Cité international academic of Paris. Like the 37 other Houses of CIUP, it practices mixing and thus allows its residents côtoyer students many other nationalities. Copied on the university town médiéviale, the Cité constitutes, with its park of 40 hectares and its some 6000 residents, a true small town, sheltered in a bosky bower, and located between the Maréchaux boulevards and the ring road. The aim in view by its initiators, in the humanistic and pacifist context of the Twenties, was to make it possible to the deserving and not very fortunate students to profit from a housing and to practice the discovery of the other in the tolerance.

History

A couple out of the commun run

Jean Hubert Biermans was born in 1864 in Dutch Limbourg. Endowed with exceptional qualities, he knew a professional and financial great success, after having started to work, as of the 17 years age, for a Belgian contractor of the railroads, having named Lapôtre, of which he married the girl, Berthe, in 1907.

The couple lived during 27 years with Shawinigan with the Quebec and made there fortune in the sector of the manufacture of the paper pulp. Its attachment in Belgium remained whole as many actions bienfaitrices prove it. The greatest action of patronage of Jean Hubert and Berthe Biermans-Lapôtre was incontestably a gift of 15 million gold franc at the University of Paris, to allow the construction of the Foundation which will bear their name.

Under the terms of this deed of gift, the Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation belongs to the “not-attached” Houses of the Cité international academic of Paris. For this reason, it has an autonomous board of directors, chaired of right by SEM the ambassador of Belgium in France.

1924-1925: donation with the installation of the first stone

The construction of building of the Foundation began on April 14th, 1925, thanks to the generous gift makes in 1924 by Jean Hubert and Berthe Biermans-Lapôtre. It is Armand Guérite, architect as a chief of the French government, then in load of the palate of Versailles, which was in charge of the design of the building. The Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation was inaugurated on November 7th, 1927.

1925-2001: construction with the restoration

Thanks to exceptional subsidies granted by the governments Belgian and Luxembourg, the Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation is able to propose to the students and to the researchers, a “House” completely renovated and equipped with all the modern comfort. The building knew, in the current of the year 2000, a major restoration in record time, led by the Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation and the Belgian Control of the Building industries.

Architecture

Like a sentinel keeping the entry, the House of the Belgian Students draws up his majestic and solid silhouette with the bottom of the park of the City. The building of an eclectic design is presented in the form of double T. imposing It ocher calcareous stone base develops on the levels ground floor and mezzanine. The marked equipment of the stones and the joints with step reinforce the power of the building. The frontages of stage consist of bricks clear red and stones. The angles and the circumferences of the windows are clean-flanked stones. Two turrets in overhang enclose the pinion with steps, located above the principal door. Pinions in staircase and gutters with the broad overflows courronnent the frontages. The slate-coloured roof is bored multiple attic windows, of œils-of-ox and small pinions. Frames with glazing bar rythment the frontage. The ground floor of the building is occupied by administrative space, a living room of reading, a library and the apartment of the director. A vast room of festivals occupies the western wing. In the basements, are the technical premises, the wash-house, the stores, the reserves, a room of arrangement for the bicycles, the workshops, as well as a room of television, a photographic laboratory of development, a room of music and a versatile room allowing activities of leisures and evenings of students. The 219 rooms and studios, the common kitchens, the living rooms of stage (devoted to the computers, the TV and a bédéthèque) as well as the residences of the director-assistant and the guard are distributed on the six other levels. This large residence can currently accommodate 270 people.

Former famous residents

Jacques Santer, former president of the European commission.
Pierre Werner, Luxembourg Politician and craftsman of the economic and monetary Union European

The Foundation today

Literature

See Too

Quoted international academic of Paris

External bonds

Quoted international academic of university Paris
Foundation of Belgium
the cultural diary of the Foundation
the Revival of the Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation. Slides of a scandal in becoming (Knack, July 19th, 2007)
New suspicions on the Ambassador in Paris: The management of the Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation in question

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