From 5-8 June 2025, the RSUA organised a study trip to Paris, one of Europe’s leading cities for music, art and architecture.
The aim for every RSUA Study Trip is to make it stimulating, engaging, thought provoking and friendship forming. We want a trip which has the potential to change how we think and act when we get back home.
The trip started on Thursday evening with a visit to the Irish Cultural Centre to get little taste of the myriad of cultural connections between Ireland and France. The former Irish college is nestled away in the historic Latin Quarter, on the aptly named Rue des Irlandais. The group enjoyed a tour of the Centre’s Old Library, built in 1775 and the current exhibition, Nature morte by Brian Maguire. This was followed by a drinks reception, kindly sponsored by Tarkett and JP Corry. The RSUA group was joined under the shelter of the courtyard’s awnings by new friends from the Irish Cultural Centre.
On Friday morning, the architectural itinerary started with a visit to Le Corbusier’s Maison La Roche. This house, which is the first example of Le Corbusier’s ‘Five Points of a New Architecture’, was commissioned by art collector Raoul La Roche and built between 1923 and 1925 by Le Corbusier and his cousin and associate Pierre Jeanneret.
The afternoon included a tour of an urban regeneration project on the site of a 19th Century barracks, the Caserne de Reuilly, located in the 12th arrondissement. Antoine Santiard, partner in Equerre d’Argent Prize winning practice h2o architectes, guided the group through the process of creating nearly 600 homes in the former barracks, as well as ground floor artist’s ateliers and a nursery, all organised around a central public courtyard.
On Friday evening, some of the group chose to spend their free evening in the artistic Montmartre area of Paris and others on the trendy streets of Saint Germain.
For the keen cyclists, the Saturday itinerary kicked off with a cycling tour along the banks of the Seine and through the 7th and 8th arrondissements, which took in the sights of the Champ de Mars, Eiffel Tower, Hotel des Invalides, the Grand Palais and the Louvre Museum.
Other members of the group spent the morning in Poissy on the outskirts of Paris, exploring Le Corbusier’s most recognisable work of modernist architecture at the Villa Savoye. Some others chose to pay a visit to the David Hockney exhibition on display in the Louis Vuitton Foundation’s sculptural, glass building at the edge of the Jardin d’Acclimation, designed by Frank Gehry.
In the afternoon, the group entered Notre Dame Cathedral for a close-up look at its restoration under lead architect Philippe Villeneuve, following the catastrophic fire in 2019. After taking in the interiors, two guides from the organisation CASA took the group on a walking tour of the exteriors of the Cathedral to discover more about its history and the ongoing restoration.
On the final evening of the trip, the group enjoyed another sponsored drinks reception and dinner in a private dining area at Brasserie des Prés, tucked away on a cobbled street near the Jardin du Luxembourg.
With thanks again to our sponsors:
