IHES invites you to discover its history through a virtual exhibition entitled “The scientific heritage of IHES”, highlighting some of its archives.
Photos, extracts from letters and official documents will give you a glimpse of how IHES has evolved over the years, since its foundation in 1958. The descriptions by Anne-Sandrine Paumier, a science historian, will help you to better appreciate these sources and to put them into context.
The exhibition is organized around ten chapters. By going through them in order, you will first discover the history of the Institute’s premises, you will meet Alexandre Grothendieck’s emblematic figure and you will get an idea of the central role played by IHES in the development of algebraic geometry. After a focus on the creation of the Institute and its early years, you will get a chance to meet some of the researchers who have shaped IHES, coming from all over the world. One chapter is also dedicated to the “Blue books”, the renowned “Publications mathématiques de l’IHES”.
The exhibition was designed by Anne-Sandrine Paumier. The archival materials presented, as well as a selection of historical archives of IHES, were digitized with the support of La Diagonale Paris-Saclay, the Fondation Mathématique Jacques Hadamard and the Crédit Agricole Île-de-France Mécénat. The digital version of this exhibition was realized with the support of Crédit Agricole Île-de-France Mécénat.