École Supérieure d'Optique, Paris-Saclay University, Engineering college in Palaiseau, France
École Supérieure d'Optique is a graduate engineering college on the Paris-Saclay campus in Palaiseau. Its dark-framed glass building reflects the sky and nearby trees, and a blue sign on the upper facade reads Institut d'Optique with a smaller orange line underneath.
The school opened in 1920 in Paris to train engineers for the French optics industry, after being founded in 1917 at the urging of Armand de Gramont. It moved several times before the Palaiseau campus was inaugurated in 2006, when the current graduate school identity took hold.
The name Institut d'Optique Graduate School replaced the older SupOptique label in 2006, but students and staff still use both. The luminous glass surfaces give the building a studied, technical presence that fits the school's focus on light and optical science.
The campus is best reached from central Palaiseau, and the building is easy to spot because of its glass corner and tall grasses at the base. If you visit during the academic year, the area around the entrance is quiet and you can walk along the nearby paths without entering the school.
The mirrors used for NASA's STEREO mission and for the Solar Orbiter's EUI instrument were made in this institution's laboratories. That kind of precision work comes from the same campus where students now walk past the tall grasses at the building's base.
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