| Summary: | Drawing on archives and publications of the Ministry of National Education or local educational actors, this article sheds light on the implementation of industrialisation processes in the construction on standard plans of secondary school buildings and the calling into question of this architecture, especially after 1968. It shows the multiple reasons, constraints and challenges (political, administrative, technical, architectural, educational) of this stuttering and complex double process, while challenging certain preconceived ideas. These two movements have, in fact, intertwined much more than they have succeeded one another. Admittedly, they were concurrent with a strong centralisation of educational policies symbolised by the creation in 1956, within the ministry, of a “direction de l’Équipement scolaire, universitaire et sportif”, a “directorate of school, university and sports equipment” (DESUS), but the standardised plans of educational buildings as well as the criticism of “barracks-high schools” were long-standing since they dated back to the end of the 19th century and were therefore prior to industrialisation. Furthermore, while the place of the DESUS was evolving according to the administrative reorganisations of the ministry (until its disappearance in 1986 following the transfer of high schools to the regions), the ministry engaged in architectural reflections from 1969 and programmed new constructions on an experimental basis, foreshadowing the renewal of high school architecture after the decentralisation.
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