L'enseignement technique et professionnel à l’épreuve des locaux : la Société d’enseignement professionnel du Rhône et ses lieux de formation (Lyon, 1864-2013)

If the academic group can be viewed as a symbolic system, then what can be said about technical education ? Can we see technical education as a local employers's education political project embodied in the architecture of schooling constructions ? In that sense, to question schooling architecture leads us to wonder on the purpose of those constructions, on the project leaders that are chosen to build them, and on the financial means granted to those constructions. Technical education requires important spaces. Space is a key factor for schooling construction development , especially in an urban environment where access to property is a real problem. The Societé d'enseignement professionnel du Rhône, a private association founded in 1864, has become the greatest technical education institution in the Rhône-Alpes region. We have tried to understand how this school has developed it's training locations, and how it has financed them. Our study shows that the expansion of the school has encourage administrators to search endlessly for new spaces, and that they have by a real estate policy, manage to contain the relentless demands for new locations.