Jussieu Campus

The Jussieu Campus (Campus Universitaire de Jussieu) is a higher education campus located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France, which is the main campus of the Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI). The Paris Diderot University (Paris VII), was also originally located on the Jussieu campus but moved to its new independent campus in the Paris Rive Gauche neighborhood in 2006-2012. Many ties continue to exist between the two universities.

Because of reconstruction programs in progress (see below), various facilities have been moved out of the campus to other parts of Paris.

The campus was opened in 1951 and eventually it would host a great part of the old faculty of sciences of the Sorbonne. Built on the site of the old "Halle aux vins," a wine market created by Napoleon Bonaparte, the campus remains incomplete to this day. In 1957, the first university buildings were built along the Eastern bank of the River Seine (le quai Saint-Bernard), and Rue Cuvier. In order to allow the wine to remain on the site, the architects planned to construct the buildings on stilts above the roads of the market.

However, in 1964, with over 20,000 science students graduating high school (the baby boom generation), the old Sorbonne could not accommodate the influx of students. André Malraux entrusted the architect Édouard Albert with the task of rapidly constructing a new science campus on the site. Albert's grand vision of modular metallic buildings, designed to facilitate interdisciplinary work and improve teaching, was never achieved, and eventually abandoned in 1972.

Most of the campus consists in a regular grid of 6-floor wings; at the points of intersection are staircases and elevators. The grid is built on a large elevated slab, and the wings do not reach to the bottom of the slab, making it possible to walk across the campus without crossing the buildings. Underneath the slab are ground-level and underground facilities, including a car park. The main front of Jussieu is bounded by a 10 meter deep dry moat, and many pedestrian entrances are bridges over this moat that can be readily secured. The high security features of the campus are likely a response to the student riots that occurred in 1968 in this neighborhood.

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