Outcry over plans to demolish art deco building used in Marie Curie’s and colleagues’ research
By 
Julia Robinson2024-01-05T09:30:00
Former radioactive sources storage site slated for decontamination on 8 January to be knocked down to make way for office block
A Parisian laboratory in which Marie Curie worked from 1914 until the end of her life could soon be demolished to make way for a five-storey office building .
The Pavillon des Sources is one of three buildings close to the Palace of Versailles that made up the Institut du Radium, which has since merged with the Curie Foundation to form the Curie Institute. The building was constructed for Curie by the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute between 1911 and 1914 for her work on radioactivity. The Curie Institute, which still owns the site, has decided to knock down the Pavillon des Sources to create office space and meeting rooms for researchers.
According to documents authored by Curie, the Pavillon des Sources was built apart from the other two laboratories on the site because it was where radioactive sources were prepared and the most active elements could interfere with physicists’ work in the main building.