Originally designed by Edouard Albert but completed by four different architects, the four buildings of the Faculty of Tours, situated on the Tanneurs site between Vieux-Tours and the Loire, share the same history of a tumultuous political project from the 1970s, and the same ‘Borel’ patent, which enabled the design of concrete walls onto which thin stone slabs were cast. Today, they crystallise a single, pressing question: how can a ‘simple’ thermal renovation of post-war academic buildings be adapted to meet changing needs? Following the Jussieu atrium of central Paris Sorbonne University in 2004 and the Centre Pompidou library in 2000, Emmanuelle Marin and David Trottin have undertaken a restrained yet effective renovation of the university's library, its hall and auditoriums, addressing the structural lack of funding allocated in our policies to universities—and thus to young people—a mere matter of priority.
