BUILDING CITIZENS: SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE AND ITS SOCIETAL PROGRAMME - COMPARATIVE VISIONS FROM 19^TH AND 20^TH CENTURY SWITZERLAND AND LUXEMBOURG

CONSTRUYENDO CIUDADANOS: ARQUITECTURA ESCOLAR Y SU PROGRAMA SOCIAL - VISIONES COMPARATIVAS DE SUIZA Y LUXEMBURGO EN LOS SIGLOS XIX Y XX

CONSTRUIRE DE CITOYENS : L'ARCHITECTURE SCOLAIRE ET SON PROGRAMME SOCIETAL - VISIONS COMPARATIVES DE LA SUISSE ET LUXEMBOURG AU XIX ^E ET AU XX ^E SIECLE

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the hypothesis, that school buildings construct the future citizens of the nation-state. We specifically ask, how such national constructions play out in multilingual nation-states. With a special focus on the development of school architecture in a variety of regions including as major cases Luxembourg and Switzerland, the paper analyses school buildings as the spaces where the act of physically going to school takes place. As a dominant of the local scenery, schools were also actively involved in the presentation of spaces, displaying concepts of the nation or its sub-units. In Switzerland, it reveals the strong importance of the cantons and communities; in Luxembourg it showed the significant role of the capital as well as the local commune and demographical policies of the country: While national coherence was emphasized and also symbolically transported for instance through uniform school buildings or model school types, we found also that the school buildings were of overall importance for the profile finding of regions and communes and became powerful agents of societal planning in anchoring citizens to specific regions and shaping the core of the village. In both cases, the article demonstrates the significant contribution of school buildings to the manifold ways of unifying citizens and differentiating them according to societal needs.

Keywords:
history of education; school architecture; material culture; nation-building