The Robert de Sorbon
Foundation
The Robert de Sorbon Foundation
The Robert de Sorbon Foundation, formerly known as the Société des amis des universités de Paris, created in 1899, was established as a public interest organisation by decree of 12 May 2009.
The Foundation sets up programmes that promote innovation in the transmission of knowledge, with a view to serving higher education and research. These programmes are either produced by the Foundation itself, or within the framework of financing or co-productions of external initiatives which the Foundation supports.
The team
- David Fajolles, chairman of the Directorate
- Florian Raoult, Head of Operations
The Hôtels de Vogüé-Luart
On the plot of land at No. 18-22 rue Martignac and No. 21-25 rue de Bourgogne, the Comte Charles-Louis de Vogüé had built, as early as 1835, a large mansion with outbuildings surrounded by a courtyard and gardens. His son, Marie-Laurent-Charles-Arthur Comte de Vogüé, divided this large property into four plots of land, sold those on the rue de Bourgogne and kept the one on the rue de Martignac - on which he had a new hotel built, commissioned in 1882 from the architect Paul Ernest Sanson. Pierre-Augustin-Joseph Marquis de Montaigu bought the property in 1891.
On the plot of land at No. 16 rue Martignac, Louis-Marie-Jean-Charles de Martin du Tyrac, Comte de Marcellus, built a small hotel around 1841, which his heirs sold in 1897 to the Marquis de Montaigu. The latter gifted it in 1913 to his daughter and son-in-law, the Comte and Comtesse du Luart. They commissioned the architect Maurice Coulomb to build a new hotel in 1914, whose facades reproduce those designed by Sanson in 1882.
In 1941, the widow of the Marquis de Montaigu and her daughter, the widow of the Comte du Luart, were forced to sell their adjoining properties to the French State, which installed the services of the State Secretariat for War. All of the former apartments and their outbuildings were converted into offices, but most of the decorations of the former salons on the first floor and the beautiful staircases of the two hotels were retained.
A few years later, probably as early as 1946,
the State Secretariat for War was replaced by the newly created General Planning Commission, where Jean Monnet (1888-1979), the initiator of the project, was appointed Planning Commissioner from the outset and remained until 1952.
In 2006, the General Planning Commission became the Centre d'analyse stratégique and then, in 2013, the Commissariat général à la stratégie et à la prospective (France Stratégie).
In 2018, both properties were sold to Raise Immobilier. This company launched a new restoration and restructuring campaign in 2020, without profoundly altering the interiors. It is in the spirit of conservation and transmission of this architectural heritage that various craftsmen have been involved in this demanding project: masons, stonemasons, sculptors, decor restorers, decorative painters, roofers, carpenters, ironworkers.
The Hôtels de Vogüé-Luart are now the headquarters of the Robert de Sorbon Foundation and of the Cours de civlisation française de la Sorbonne.
The Foundation in pictures
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