Editing École des ponts ParisTech (section)

== History ==
[[File:Ponts-carnot.jpg|thumb|283x283px|The Carnot Building.]]

=== 1747–1794: Origins ===
Following the creation of the [[Corps of Bridges and Roads (France)|Corps of Bridges and Roads]] in 1716, the [[Conseil du Roi|King's Council]] decided in 1747 to found a specific training course for the state's engineers, as École royale des ponts et chaussées. In 1775, the school took its current name as École nationale des ponts et chaussées, by Daniel-Charles Trudaine, in a moment when the state decided to set up a progressive and efficient control of the building of roads, bridges and canals, and in the training of civil engineers.

The school's first director, from 1747 until 1794, was [[Jean-Rodolphe Perronet]], engineer, civil service administrator and a contributor to the [[Encyclopédie]] of [[Denis Diderot]] and [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]]. Without lecturer, fifty students (among whom Lebon, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Pierre-Simon Girard, Riche de Prony, Méchain and Brémontier), initially taught themselves [[geometry]], [[algebra]], [[mechanics]] and [[hydraulics]]. Visits of building sites, cooperations with scientists and engineers and participation to the drawing of the map of the [[Kingdom of France|kingdom]] used to complete their training, which was usually four to twelve years long.

=== 1794–1848: Growth and industrialisation ===
During the [[First French Empire]] run by [[Napoleon I]] from 1804 to 1814, a number of members of the Corps of Bridges and Roads (including [[Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant|Barré de Saint-Venant]], [[Eugène Belgrand|Belgrand]], [[Jean-Baptiste Biot|Biot]], [[Cauchy]], [[Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis|Coriolis]], [[Jules Dupuit|Dupuit]], [[Augustin-Jean Fresnel|Fresnel]], [[Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac|Gay-Lussac]], [[Claude-Louis Navier|Navier]], [[Louis Vicat|Vicat]]) took part in the reconstruction of the French road network that had not been maintained during the [[French Revolution|Revolution]], and in large infrastructural developments, notably hydraulic projects. Under the orders of the emperor, French scientist [[Gaspard Riche de Prony]], second director of the school from 1798 to 1839, adapts the education provided by the school in order to improve the training of future civil engineers, whose purpose is to rebuild the major infrastructures of the country: roads, bridges, but also administrative buildings, barracks and fortifications. Prony is now considered as a historical and influential figure of the school. During the twenty years that followed the First Empire, the experience of the faculty and the alumni involved in the reconstruction strongly influenced its training methods and internal organisation. In 1831, the school opens its first laboratory, which aims at concentrating the talents and experiences of the country's best civil engineers. The school also gradually becomes a place of reflection and debates for urban planning.

=== 1848–1945: The big works ===
As a new step in the evolution of the school, the decree of 1851 insists on the organisation of the courses, the writing of an annual schedule, the quality of the faculty, and the control of the students’ works. For the first time in its history, the school opens its doors to a larger public. At this time, in France, the remarkable development of transports, roads, bridges and canals is strongly influenced by engineers from the school ([[Henri Becquerel|Becquerel]], [[Fulgence Bienvenüe|Bienvenüe]], [[Albert Caquot|Caquot]], [[Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot|Carnot]], [[Clément Colson|Colson]], [[André Coyne|Coyne]], [[Eugène Freyssinet|Freyssinet]], [[Louis-Jean Résal|Résal]], [[Paul Séjourné|Séjourné]]), who deeply modernised the country by creating the large traffic networks, admired in several European countries.

=== 1945–1997: Modernisation ===
After the [[Second World War]], the school focused on developing the link between economics and engineering. As civil engineering was requiring increasingly higher financial investments, the [[France|state]] needed engineers to be able to understand the economic situation of [[Aftermath of World War II|post-war Europe]]. From then on, the program of the school had three different aspects: scientific and technic, social, and economic.
Gradually, the number of admitted students increased in order to provide both the [[Corps of Bridges and Roads]] and the private sector highly trained young engineers. At the time, technical progress and considerable development of sciences and techniques used in building, urbanism and the protection of the environment imposed a change of strategy in the training programme. More specialisations were progressively created and the overall programme was adapted to national issues.