When we visited the Lycée Francais de Porto for the very first time, I found myself thinking: “I want to go back to school!”. The campus is on the grounds of the Serralves park, the vast landscaped garden of a Portuguese industrialist that were bequeathed to Porto to create the Serralves Foundation Museum and the school.

What an uplifting place to study… all transparency and functionality, surrounded by pines. Yesterday, the Girls showed me an aerial view of the campus. An enterprising fifth form student had flown a camera drone around the school grounds and posted his film, with soaring soundtrack, on the school’s Facebook page. On the lucky days that I have the school run, I keep coming back to the same original impression: oh, to go back to school at a place like this!

‘Education’ is a loaded word. It’s certainly not confined to the school grounds (and indeed may have little to do with conventional school at all, as other Pirouette contributors have shown with their home schooling regimens). In this digital age, the whole notion of the classroom may be entirely upended in fact. For those of us still sending our children to a more traditional school setting, however, it’s certainly not simply about what you learn at school. It’s about where you learn.

Here are five architectural gems (Lycée Francais de Porto not included!), that create an edifying environment for their students. Where did you go to school? What was your favourite classroom, gymnasium or cafeteria? Why?

Education school