The Beaux-Arts de Paris opens the doors of their buildings classified as historical monuments, usually closed to the public.
The Beaux-Arts de Paris, heirs of the Royal Academies of Painting and Sculpture, is both a place of training and artistic experimentation, a place of exhibition and conservation of historical and contemporary collections and a publishing house. Located in an exceptional site of more than two hectares in the heart of Paris, close to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the establishment presents a condensed architecture, from the seventeenth with the Augustin chapel, to the twentieth century with the building signed Auguste Perret.
In the former cloister of the convent, Alexander Lenoir had planted a mulberry tree from China, which passed its name to this shady courtyard. Duban rebuilt the cloister in 1836 by transforming it into an ancient atrium lined with arcades and decorated with a fountain. Under the Second Empire, he completed his decoration with paintings in the Pompeian style and casts of the Parthenon friezes, which run halfway up three sides. A central fountain, antique marble statues located under arcades, frescoes of Italian inspiration, moldings of the friezes called Panathenae, a ceiling with joists and a mosaic floor contribute to the rich polychrome of this bucolic place. The Mulberry Court underwent a major renovation (2015–2018) that restored its splendour.
The Cour d'Honneur, the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, the Amphitheatre d'Honneur, the Palais des Etudes and its glazed courtyard will also be open to visitors.