College lamartine - Dunkirk

The project to set up a girls' secondary school in Dunkirk is linked to the law on secondary education adopted on 21 December 1880: "girls are as suitable as boys for secondary education" . This text caused a stormy debate in the Chamber and the Senate.

As early as October 1880, before the final vote on the bill of deputy Camille Sée, the municipal council of Dunkirk was asked to set up a public secondary education for young girls. On 4 March a room in the rue de la Panne housed 25 girls who were ready to follow six lessons of an hour and a half per week. The foundations were laid and the new school expanded rapidly: the number of classes rose to eleven in 1882 and doubled in 1883; as the number of pupils increased, the school became too small and had to move to the Place du Théâtre;

The port expanded rapidly and successive mayors turned Dunkirk into a large city. During the 19th century, the city built new public facilities, including a high school, a theatre, a museum, a courthouse, a post office, a new town hall, a sub-prefecture, a bathhouse, the Minck and a new neo-Gothic façade for the church of Saint-Eloi.

The Collège Lamartine is one of the few old buildings to have survived the bombings of the Second World War and the subsequent destruction by man. Originally built to provide secondary education for girls in a building worthy of the name, it has had several important purposes, all related to education.

In 1909, the municipality of Dunkirk decided to build a girls' secondary school on land owned by the Hospices de Dunkerque, the former hospital. The foundation stone , which is aligned with the main entrance, contains a lead core containing a crystal tube sealed with wax. It contains the minutes of the event and a number of gold, silver, metal and bronze coins bearing the seal of the Republic.

In 1940, the school was occupied by German troops and turned into a hospital. In 1958, the transfer of the girls' technical college to Collège Lamartine was approved. Collège Lamartine was closed in 1970 , giving rise to much debate about its future. A study carried out in 1985 provided for the creation of a university centre at Collège Lamartine. The Lamartine centre welcomes many students, but the building is dilapidated. The ambition to bring all higher education together in Citadelle led to the building's closure in 2013.

Two sculpted stone elements from Savonnière reinforce the axial doorway and the tympanum gable above the main façade. They form two imposing cartouches bordered by plant motifs and crowned by a head. The upper cartouche, supported by two large volutes and decorated with a grotesque mask, bears the initials of the French Republic. It crowns the cartouche bearing the name of the college in flamed sandstone letters on a ceramic background.

Willem Vandenameele