At the École des Arts Décoratifs: designing our living spaces

Founded in 1766, the École des Arts Décoratifs – PSL is celebrating its 260^(th) anniversary. The only French school still bearing this name, it brings together ten creative disciplines ranging from fine art and design to animation and stage design. Emmanuel Tibloux, who has led the school since 2018, firmly believes that the decorative arts are the arts of our living environments, and that the school trains designers of contemporary interiors. We meet a director who views creativity as intrinsically linked to the world and its social, ecological, and political issues, and who aims to transform his institution into a laboratory for our living environments.

A 260-year-old gem

The story begins in 1766. Since then, the École des Arts Décoratifs has seen Rodin, Matisse, and generations of artists who shaped the artistic vision of their time pass through its doors. Today, it remains the only institution in France to bear the name ‘arts décoratifs’, a designation that Tibloux considers to be profoundly contemporary. “It is a true gem, the most fascinating school there is, a unique model within the French system,” the director sums up. The institution aims to engage with the wider world and its social, environmental, and political issues. “The opposite of art created in a vacuum, the opposite of an insular clique,” he insists. Ten departments cover almost every field of art, from the most traditional crafts to the most conceptual forms. Seven hundred students and two hundred staff bring the school to life, including around a hundred teachers and some thirty workshop leaders.

The common thread of the ‘arts of making’

1.01.25 JPO ©Béryl Libault

What links sectors as diverse as textile design, animation and stage design? For Emmanuel Tibloux, the answer lies in a single phrase: ‘the arts of making’. Here, technique is never subservient to the idea. “The question of craftsmanship — of knowing how to do things well or doing things well — is absolutely central,” he explains, setting it apart from conceptual art, where execution may be delegated. The second principle is the flow between disciplines. ‘In the spirit of the decorative arts, art is always hybrid and impure. There is no such thing as pure painting, sculpture or drawing’, asserts the director of ENSAD. The third principle is the alliance between the old and the new, which Tibloux refers to as the ‘conservatoire’ and the ‘laboratory’. Here, the school preserves screen-printing and engraving while exploring new tools and languages.

The Knitting and Weaving Workshops, the heart of the school

Puzzle pour un collectif ©Beryl Liba

If one had to sum up the École des Arts Décoratifs in a single place, it would be the Knitting and Weaving Workshops. It is here that Emmanuel Tibloux likes to begin his tours. Everything is visible at a glance: the spools of thread, the Jacquard loom and the CNC machine side by side; the students, focused on their handiwork; and the tutors, who are highly skilled. This is a deliberate choice, as textile design is currently a hot topic. “Today, we are rediscovering the insulating properties of textiles in the face of global warming, as well as the traditional craftsmanship and physicality of the work,” emphasises the director. Rugs, curtains and woven fabrics are attracting renewed interest and regaining a long-forgotten function. The discipline spans the spectrum from works of art to industrial applications, from trains and vehicles to domestic uses. Old and new under one roof.

Breaking down barriers, time and again

Workshop L3 DG – Serigraphie © Béryl Libault

The school’s integration into PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres) University is based on the long-held vision of breaking down barriers. “Faced with the world’s growing complexity, the role of higher education institutions is to break down barriers and foster dialogue and hybridisation ever further,” asserts Emmanuel Tibloux. The Master’s in Fashion and Materials, developed jointly with Paris Dauphine and the École des Mines, illustrates this approach by bringing together management, engineering, and design in pursuit of more sustainable fashion. A dual degree programme with the Paris-Malaquais School of Architecture now reunites artists, designers, and architects, who were separated by the 1968 reforms. Renovation, vernacular skills and local resources are all contemporary challenges that call for this convergence. “We must cross disciplines and fields of knowledge. We must not remain confined to our own turf or stay within our own little world,” argues the ENSAD director.

The school of lived experience

Workshop Avril ©Béryl Libault

JPO 26 ©Béryl Libault

Workshop L2 DT - Impression naturelle © Béryl Libault

One phrase kept cropping up in Emmanuel Tibloux’s speech: ‘the school of lived experience’. It stems from a return to our roots. The decorative arts were originally domestic arts, concerned with the table, plates, and cutlery. However, the director broadens this meaning to encompass our shared human experience. ‘Our home is the Earth,’ he says, making the decorative arts the arts of dwelling. This interpretation is a response to an observation. ‘We have lost the sense of dwelling,’ he notes, describing lives led in places whose inhabitants are often unaware of their surroundings, including their history, flora, fauna and geology. We live in an artificial world in which everything is designed: the chairs and plates inside our homes, the buildings and roads outside, and even the services and public policies that govern our lives. The school specifically trains the designers of these living environments — the people who shape our presence in the world.

Design des Territoires: ENSAD beyond its walls

Emmanuel Tibloux

Emmanuel Tibloux’s flagship project can be summed up in three words: Design des Territoires. This one-year postgraduate programme immerses multidisciplinary teams comprising designers, architects, artists, urban planners, and landscape architects in a given region, where they live and work together.

There are now six branches forming a network across France: coastal areas in Brittany, forested regions in Moselle, mountainous areas in Puy-de-Dôme, rural areas in the Dordogne, island regions in Réunion and urban areas in southern Île-de-France. Each branch addresses significant ecological and social challenges, ranging from coastal erosion to healthcare access issues. The programme was born out of an idea first formulated in 2018 and found immediate validation in the Yellow Vest movement. The first cohort settled in Nontron, in the Périgord Vert, in 2021, and this year the initiative is expanding to the Limoux region in the Aude to focus on viticulture, drought, and the relationship with water.

Building schools, shaping the region

The concept of ‘Design des Territoires’ is based on a different vision of education. Emmanuel Tibloux traces this back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his ‘education through things’: while it is possible to learn botany from books, it is also possible to gain insight through direct contact with plants and living things. ‘Starting from the field to shape the school, and from the school to shape the region’ is the motto. The director sees a new profession emerging here: the regional designer. They will be called upon to rethink the revitalisation of town centres, mobility solutions, and access to healthcare from within the places concerned. This approach permeates the entire school, from a dedicated research group to the Interior Architecture department being renamed ‘Design, Architecture and Environments’, and a dual degree programme with the École d’architecture de Paris Malaquais. The director cites a project that scored twenty out of twenty as an example of this approach: an airport for Gaza conceived by a Syrian student. Proof that, here, creativity faces the world head-on.

The decorative arts in 2026

What will the decorative arts be like in 2026? Emmanuel Tibloux answers without hesitation: ‘They are the arts of our living environments; the arts of designing our living environments to make them more liveable.’ The focus has shifted. In the past, designing a plate or piece of cutlery was what mattered; now, it is about designing liveable conditions for territories in a sorry state whilst working with their own resources – something the decorative arts have been doing since their inception. With one year to go before the end of his final term of office, the director is leaving behind a school that has become a laboratory for transformation. It remains faithful to its original vocation, while focusing on the challenges of this century. It is an institution with a history spanning two hundred and sixty years that has never ceased to shape tomorrow’s world.