Le Piree.(1886)

Scarce French plan of the Port of Piraeus, Greece published by the  École nationale des ponts et chaussées.

In 493 BC, Themistocles initiated the fortifications of Piraeus and later advised the Athenians to take advantage of its natural harbours’ strategic potential. In 483 BC, the Athenian fleet left the older harbour of Phaleron for Piraeus. Themistocles went on to construct the port and created the ship sheds (neosoikoi), while the Themistoclean Walls were completed in 471 BC, turning Piraeus into a great military and commercial harbour, which served as the permanent navy base for the mighty Athenian fleet.

The famous Parisian engineering school originally named, École nationale des ponts et chaussées, was established to train engineering officials and civil engineers. Following the creation of the Corps of Bridges and Roads in 1716, the King’s Council decided in 1747 to found a specific training course for the state’s engineers, as École royale des ponts et chaussées. In 1775, the school took its current name as, École nationale des ponts et chaussées, when the state decided to set up a progressive and efficient control of the building of roads, bridges and canals, and in the training of civil engineers. The school’s first director, from 1747 until 1794, was Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, an engineer, civil service administrator and a contributor to the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert. Without lecturers, fifty students, initially taught themselves geometry, algebra, mechanics and hydraulics. Visits to building sites, cooperations with scientists and engineers and participation to the drawing of the map of the kingdom used to complete their training, which was usually from four to twelve years long.

In 1851 the school change its methodology of instruction, with the writing of an annual schedule, improving the quality of the faculty, and the assessment of students’ works. At this time, in France, the remarkable development of transports, roads, bridges and canals is strongly influenced by engineers from the school (Becquerel, Bienvenüe, Caquot, Carnot, Colson, Coyne, Freyssinet, Résal, Séjourné), who deeply modernised the country by creating the large traffic networks.