The cornerstone of our chapel was laid in 1060 by King Henry 1. Foucault's pendulum swings quietly in our museum. Machines that launched the Industrial Revolution were invented in our halls (and those from other lands, reverse-engineered)
The Cnam was created at the beginning of the Industrial Age and in the throes of the French revolution. As the National Convention replaced the monarchy with a social democracy of common workers, machines were changing the socioeconomic and geopolitic of Europe.
On 10 October 1794, the Convention enacted a law to educate workers in these emerging technologies and founded the Cnam in order to "improve the nation's industry, cultivate engineering methods, teach widely and illuminate ignorance" (Henri Grégoire).
Publics finances delayed the realization of the ideal until 10 June 1798 when the Cnam was physically installed in the ancient chapel of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. Machines were installed in these premises... for exposition, for learning, for reverse engineering, and for innovation. The Cnam experienced immediate success: artists, artisans, technicians, businessmen and future inventors sat side by side to learn about new developments in textiles, ceramics, mechanics, construction, applied chemistry, physics and more. Theoretically-oriented subjects were added in the 1820s: France's first Chair in Economics, for example, was created at the Cnam and occupied by Jean Baptiste Say.