In 1895, the parish of Auteuil entrusted to Hector Guimard the project of building his school. The architect chose to turn away from classical Parisian high schools and was inspired by the work of Vaudremer and Baudot, the first to provide school spaces with large windows to let in light.

His brother Paul Guimard suggested that he base the façade on a system of V-shaped cast iron pillars, following a principle proposed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in his Entretiens sur l’architecture (1863-1872). This system, a real architectural feat for the time, allows him to completely hollow the ground floor which thus serves as a courtyard for the playground. The building, ahead of its time, thus reveals the load-bearing structure, a practice later adopted by the architects of the modern movement. It is also one of the first achievements to use the font in this way.

In 1983, the building was converted into a residential building. The ground floor is closed by large windows and spaces are rearranged to accommodate housing. The original facade and the central cast iron staircase are preserved and currently protected as Historic Monuments.

Hector Guimard (1867-1942) studied at the Ecole des Arts décoratifs de Paris from 1882 to 1885, then was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, which he left in 1893 after failing the Grand Prix de Rome competition. The same year, he received his first order from a friend, who entrusted him with the construction of his house, the villa Jassede.

With this first production, Hector Guimard already sets up a rustic formal vocabulary, mixes materials and draws an anticlassic asymmetric composition. He then built the École du Sacré-Cœur, rue de la Frillière, where he used a system of twin support crutches in cast iron, a technical solution described in the Entretiens sur l’architecture published by Viollet-le-Duc. In 1894, he obtained a travel scholarship to England and also went to the Netherlands and Belgium. He was then deeply influenced by the first trends of Art Nouveau, discovering the work of Paul Hankar and Victor Horta. On his return to France in 1895, he built the Castel Béranger building, rue de la Fontaine, a true architectural manifesto. This apartment building challenges the conventions adopted by the Parisian bourgeoisie in terms of housing. Its facade with varied materials, accented reliefs, adorned with plant and marine motifs, takes up the themes previously developed by the architect in his individual houses.