There is a particular kind of building that a city carries in its bones — not the grandest monument, not the most photographed façade, but the one where generations of its people arrived, quite literally, into the world. In Menton, that building stands at 11, place Saint-Julien, a few paces from the old town's limestone alleys and directly facing the Mediterranean. Today it houses the Menton campus of Sciences Po. For one Saturday in September, during the European Heritage Days, it opens to anyone who cares to walk through its doors.
A Campus With a Maternity Ward in Its Memory
The building dates from the 19th century and was designed in the Italian-influenced style that still gives Menton its particular architectural character — closer, aesthetically, to Ventimiglia or Sanremo than to Nice or Marseille. For much of the 20th century it functioned as the Hôpital Saint-Julien, and its maternity ward remained in use into the 1950s. Many of Menton's older residents were born within these walls. Sciences Po arrived in the city in 2005, initially sharing space with the IUT before settling permanently at Saint-Julien in October 2011 following a full renovation. The institution was careful to preserve the building's bones while adapting its interior to the rhythms of academic life.
'Notre campus hébergeait encore dans les années 1950 la maternité publique de l'hôpital Saint-Julien.' — Sciences Po Menton
That layering — hospital, then lecture hall; delivery room, then seminar — is precisely what makes Saturday's visit worth the detour. The European Heritage Days exist to surface exactly this kind of palimpsest: spaces whose current function tells only part of the story.
What the Day Holds
The programme on Saturday, 19 September 2026 is structured around a loose but considered rhythm. Doors open at 9h30. At 10h00, students offer a welcome concert — a detail that sets the tone: this is an institution that chooses music as its first impression. Guided tours of the campus run at 10h30 and again at 15h00, giving visitors two windows to move through the renovated spaces with commentary. A conference is scheduled for 13h30, though the organisers note that all timings are subject to confirmation.
The campus itself enrols around 400 students each year, drawn from France and from nearly 50 countries across all five continents. They are here to study the Mediterranean-Middle East minor — a curriculum that makes geographical sense the moment you step outside and look south across the water toward the African shore. The intellectual project of the place is inseparable from its location.
Menton occupies the easternmost reach of the French Riviera, pressed against the Italian border with a microclimate so mild that lemon trees fruit year-round. Its old town climbs steeply from the seafront in tiers of ochre and terracotta, the Baroque Basilica of Saint-Michel presiding from the upper ridge. The place Saint-Julien sits within this fabric, neither peripheral nor touristic — a working square in a working neighbourhood.
For visitors who have walked past the Saint-Julien building without knowing its history, the guided tour offers something rarer than access: it offers context. To stand in a corridor that was once a hospital ward, to hear students describe the intellectual life now conducted there, and to look out from the windows toward the sea that defines the entire academic programme — that is a particular kind of afternoon.
Come for the 10h30 tour if you prefer the morning light on the façade and time for lunch in the old town afterward. Come for the 15h00 tour if you want the softer September light and the quieter streets that follow the midday heat. Either way, the address is straightforward: 11, place Saint-Julien, Menton, 06500.