Stella McCartney, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen… The English people managed to impose their brands in fashion. Their secret? A top level training, just like the brand new Central Saint Martin’s building , which gathers  the most prestigious art’s schools of London. Just a step from the Saint Pancras station, this talented incubator attracts pupils of the whole world.

Last summer, Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design moved in 1, Granary Square, into a former grains’ warehouse. In Granary Building, this factory of the arts of the XXIth century, are gathered several historic schools: Central Saint Martins  (itself an union of  the Central School of art and the famous Saint Martin School of Art in Charing Cross Road), the Drama Centre London and the Byam Shaw School of Art. For those Schools, the list of the alumni can be read as a Gotha of arts and fashion.

All in all, more than three thousand students in plastic arts, visual arts, fashion and textile live under the same roof  to whom are added the teachers and the administrative staff

The architect, Paul William, designed the school as a cubic cathedral of cement, glass and laminated (usual materials of the contemporary architecture) combined with eroded red brick inherited from the industrial revolution. Today, there is eccentricity and creativity at all floors. The building is crossed by an impressive main artery: 110 meters long and 20 meters high. Everything, here is inviting to transversality, to the hybridization and cross-fertilization of the disciplines, and to new ways to teach and to learn.

The idea to group the most prestigious art’s schools of the British capital goes back up in the middle of 1990s. The art’s university of London successfully achieves today  this old project thanks to this new building and to a financing of 200 million pounds: near half of that budget results from the sale of the former buildings, the rest coming from the bank.

An investment which the school intends to make profitable, in a period when education in general – and the arts education particularly-  is less and less subsidized and is more expensive thus always. For the British students, tuition fees are going to triple, from 3000 to 9000 pounds. Many anticipated this increase and gave up their traditional sabbatical year after the equivalent of the high school diploma.

Nowadays, Central Saint Martin’s accepts more and more ‘international’ students, whose tuition fees are higher. They represent henceforth an important part of the budget and of the students.

On the other hand, the school does not neglect sponsors avid to support creativity. Last initiative in date: LVMH signed a partnership in which the firm commits to welcome trainees in all of its brands, commits to deliver grants, affixing its logo on the amphitheater of Granary Building… Then, of course, that clamps a little towards the professors and students, also  the fact that you should not dirty grounds with painting (a contradiction for a school of art), or as the strict security measures on the accesses.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>in any case, there is a Central Saint Martins’ spirit, and it is the spirit of people who know how to take risks, who have the ambition to change the world, who are encouraged to find the answers in themselves, while learning to open doors.

A beautiful factory which allows you to create and to build yourself while dreaming.