The Athénée Robert Catteau (ARC) is a French-language secondary school owned by the

City of Brussels The City of Brussels is the largest List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, municipality and historical City centre, centre of the Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the ...

, located on rue Ernest Allard, part of the subsidized public schools network ''enseignement officiel''. Since 1948, it holds the name of Robert Catteau, an attorney, journalist and

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

of the City of Brussels. The original name of the school was ''École moyenne A'', founded in 1851 within the Free University of Brussels. The school provides modern general education preparing for university studies and qualifies itself as a "center of excellence".

History

The building of the ''École moyenne A'', in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

style, took place from 1923 to 1927 between the Church of Saints-Jean-et-Étienne-aux-Minimes and the Palace of Justice, following plans of architect François Malfait. The ancient convent of the Minimes, built on the house of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

anatomist

Andreas Vesalius Andries van Wezel (31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564), latinized as Andreas Vesalius (), was an anatomist and physician who wrote '' De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' ''in seven books''), which is ...

, had been decommissioned in 1790, and served successively as a deposit of begging in 1801, a

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

factory in 1813, a lithography workshop in 1815, a military hospital and finally a women's prison before being destroyed in 1920. Malfait had to contend with the height difference and the strict height limit of the buildings to preserve the

panorama A panorama (formed from Greek language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...

of the Poelaert square located above. The new buildings of the ''École moyenne A'' were inaugurated on 27 September 1927. On 7 December 1948, the school became the Athénée Robert Catteau. In 1948, the upper grades comprised three classical orientations: the Latin-Greek, Latin-Mathematics and Latin-Sciences sections (created in 1947). A ''Scientific A'' section was created in 1951 and a seventh secondary preparatory grade to higher education in 1958. The Athénée opened to girls in 1978. In 2011, sections were restructured in order to adapt to other establishments in the

Brussels-Capital Region Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, which is the capital ...

. The Latin-Greek, Latin-Mathematics and the Latin-Sciences final orientations remained unchanged, but Scientific A became Mathematics-Sciences and a new finality was added: the Economy-Mathematics section. On 1 January 2016, Evelyne Gotto replaced André Possot as head of the athenaeum.

Architecture

The building is built of light colored brick, in the geometric spirit of

, with decorative elements of red brick and white stone for the sculptures and the large cornice in cavet that crowns the top of the building. File:Bruxelles-Minimes-AthénéeRobertCatteau.jpg, The Athénée Robert Catteau and the Minimes Church File:Bruxelles 64 rue des Minimes 01.jpg, Façade, corps piece File:Bruxelles 64 rue des Minimes 02.jpg, Sculpture of the façade

Educational system

The school offers a traditional (non-renovated) education which has the reputation of being demanding and rigorous. For example, it emphasizes the study of ancient languages and is strongly centered on theoretical sciences and mathematics. The Athénée is a public school following the curriculum of the City of Brussels public school system, and furthermore is part of the ''Enseignement officiel'' network of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. The complementary 7th secondary grade prepares students, mainly coming from other secondary schools or other countries, to Polytechnic, Medicine or Science faculties, as well as to the Royal Military Academy.

Graduation project

The Athénée Robert Catteau is one of Belgium's last schools where pupils have to present an end-of-studies work (''Travail de fin d'études''), in order to get their diploma.

Competitions

The school holds the highest number of first prizes as well as the highest number of prizes in general at the Belgian Mathematical Olympiads since its creation in 1976. Two students have also won a silver medal at the

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious mathematical competition in the wor ...

. In 2015, the athenaeum is selected and then, in 2016, ends up in the final stage of the Cansat project of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

with its team ''SCADA 378'', having launched a rocket which contains a satellite to collect atmospheric information from

't Harde t Harde is a village in the Dutch province of Gelderland. It is situated about 6 km southeast of Elburg, on the edge of the Veluwe forest. It has a train station with connections to Zwolle and Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a Cities of t ...

military base in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Notable alumni

Christopher Gérard Christopher Gérard (born 7 July 1962) is a Belgian novelist, publisher and literary critic. He is known as a promoter of modern Paganism, drawing much inspiration from Hinduism, and published the journal ''Antaios'' from 1992 to 2001. He has wri ...

(Belgian writer) * Daniel Zajfman (Israeli-Belgian physicist; president of the

Weizmann Institute The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

) * Denis Wirtz (Vice Provost for Research and Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering Science at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

) * Jean-Baptiste Pietersz (first director, knight of the Order of Leopold) * Jean Dierickx (linguist, professor at the

Université libre de Bruxelles The (French language, French, ; lit. Free University of Brussels; abbreviated ULB) is a French-speaking research university in Brussels, Belgium. It has three campuses: the ''Solbosch'' campus (in the City of Brussels and Ixelles), the ''Plain ...

) *

Jean-Philippe Toussaint Jean-Philippe Toussaint (29 November 1957, Brussels) is a Belgian novelist, photographer and filmmaker. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has had his photographs displayed in Brussels and Japan. Toussaint won ...

(Belgian writer and filmmaker) * Léopold Blondiau (Belgian politician, vice-president of the

Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...

, first president of the Cercle des Anciens de l'Ecole Moyenne A in 1907) * Philippe Moureaux (Belgian politician,

Minister of State Minister of state is a designation for a government minister, with varying meanings in different jurisdictions. In a number of European countries, the title is given as an honorific conferring a higher rank, often bestowed upon senior minister ...

) * Robert Frickx aka. Robert Montal (Belgian author and literature historian, member of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium) * Serge Moureaux (Belgian politician,

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

and federal congressman) In 2015, Alessandro Telo, who graduated the previous year, undergoes a small media wave for his ability to master 28 languages.

References

External links

Officiel website of the Athénée Robert Catteau

Athénée Robert Catteau on the website of the City of Brussels

Athénée Robert Catteau on the education database of the ''Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Athenee Robert Catteau Secondary schools in Brussels