The Fondation des États-Unis rents its spaces for professional events: conferences, lunches, buffet dinners, concerts and film shoots for up to 180 guests in the Grand Salon, and meetings or training sessions for 19 to 50 people in smaller rooms. The building is a 1930 Art Deco residence on boulevard Jourdan, inside the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris, in the 14th arrondissement.
Seminars and company events
The house hosts more than 50 events a year of its own and rents its rooms to outside organizations. The Grand Salon is the room for a conference or a plenary. The rose garden can be rented alongside it for a professional lunch, dinner or cocktail. Smaller rooms around it serve as breakout rooms, a speakers' backstage or a caterer's room.
The foundation rents projectors, movable screens, a lectern with sound, a sound system and microphones. Organizers may bring their own equipment. The house strongly advises coming with a technician or booking a technical service. When the Grand Salon is booked for a concert or music recording, a piano tuner is charged. Quotes are prepared on request from the details of the event.
Rooms and capacities
The Grand Salon covers 250 m² and takes up to 180 people, depending on layout. It has a 7 m ceiling, an 8 m by 5 m stage, a Steinway concert grand and a view over the rose garden. From October to June its 88 m² balcony holds the house exhibitions, but it can be rented for a small reception of up to 50 with the show in place, or used with the Grand Salon as a press or spectator area.
The Petit Salon, an Art Deco room of 40 m² that opens onto the Grand Salon, takes up to 19 people as a meeting room or backstage. The Salon Chicago, 28 m² next to reception, also takes 19. The Salle Polyvalente covers 80 m² and takes up to 50, set as a meeting room, a classroom or a cocktail and buffet area. A newer classroom with tables set in an oval, two soundproofed music studios with pianos and a study room complete the list.
Accommodation
The building houses 274 student rooms, which are not open to event guests. A fourth-floor apartment with a double bedroom and kitchen can be rented for short stays, in priority for visiting professors.
Catering
The foundation does not run an event kitchen. Groups bring their own caterer, and the Salon Chicago can be rented as a caterer's room under conditions.
History and setting
The house was built to host American students and researchers in Paris and to embody French-American friendship. Ambassador Myron Timothy Herrick launched the project in 1925 with American universities and donors, notably Mabel Knowles Gage and her husband, the surgeon Homer Gage. It opened in April 1930 in the presence of President Gaston Doumergue. Architect Pierre Émile Leprince-Ringuet designed a U-shaped building, with a central block along boulevard Jourdan and two wings toward the park, and a full floor of artists' studios. Sculptor Marcel Gaumont carved its facade. In 1994 the director rediscovered a cycle of frescoes by Robert La Montagne Saint-Hubert in the Grand Salon; they are listed as a historic monument and were restored by a team of experts from the Louvre.
Getting there
The foundation sits on boulevard Jourdan, on the edge of the Cité internationale campus and its park, in the south of Paris. The Cité Universitaire stop on RER B and the T3a tramway serve the campus.
