With its new articles of association in force since 1 January 2024, the EPCC Cité du design École Supérieure d'Art et Design de Saint-Étienne (ESADSE) also starts the year with a new Director. Éric Jourdan, a designer highly regarded in France and abroad, who had already been running ESADSE since 2020, now takes the helm of the Saint-Étienne EPCC (a public institution for cultural cooperation) with the aim of making it a unique centre for creation and discovering design.
The new articles of association of the EPCC Cité du design-ESADSE, adopted at the board meeting on 29 November last, came into force on 1 January 2024. Éric Jourdan, director of ESADSE since 2020, was then appointed Director of the EPCC Cité du design-ESADSE. This institution so emblematic of Saint-Étienne, which organises the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Étienne and has 400 French and foreign students training in art and design, will also benefit from a refocusing of its missions, the reorganisation of its governance and a more secure budget.
Éric Jourdan is a designer highly regarded in France and abroad as a furniture
designer (Cinna, Ligne Roset, among others), but also for his collaboration with Philippe Starck, his work for Mobilier national, his projects in other areas such as graphics, scenography, urban planning and even signage, most notably for the Fondation Cartier and the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. Alongside his work as a designer, he also taught in several art and designs schools, including Beaux-Arts de Paris, before joining ESADSE in 1994.
In 1998, he was involved in the creation of the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Étienne, and took on the role of General Curator for the 2nd edition in 2000. He is particularly attached to the values that have made Saint-Étienne's reputation in the design world and is now preparing, with the Cité du design-ESADSE, to write a new page in the joint institution's history at the heart of a creative district currently undergoing a major transformation.
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