École Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer, Colonial administration school in 6th arrondissement, France.
École Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer is a school building at 2 Avenue de l'Observatoire featuring Moorish Revival architecture with decorative details inspired by Moroccan traditions. The structure combines functional education spaces with distinctive visual elements that set it apart from typical Parisian institutional buildings.
The school grew out of Auguste Pavie's 1885 telegraph training programme for Cambodian staff, which became the École coloniale in 1889 under the Third Republic, backed by deputy Eugène Étienne and steered by Paul Dislère. Renamed École nationale de la France d'outre-mer in 1934, it became IHEOM in 1959 and IIAP in 1966, which merged into ENA in 2002.
The building's Moorish Revival design drew mainly on Moroccan architecture and predates the Grand Mosque of Paris, which is why Parisians nicknamed it "the old mosque". Its decoration included works by painters Charles Lameire, Gabriel-Charles Deneux and Claude Bourgonnier and ceramic artist Jules Paul Loebnitz; pieces evoking colonial glories were removed in the 1970s.
The building stands at 2 avenue de l'Observatoire, by the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement, and is now the Paris campus of the Institut national du service public. It is a working administration site, so plan on viewing the L-shaped stone facade, the arched corner portal and the brick banding from the street.
Visitors often call this building the 'old mosque' informally, a nickname that comes from its striking Moorish architecture. The structure housed artworks by Charles Lameire and Claude Bourgonnier until these were removed in the 1970s.
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