[3] In 1908, designer Jacques Doucet initiated a pioneering library of art-related books complemented by research works he sponsored,[4] and in late 1917 donated it to the University of Paris.

[5]: 2 In March 1920, three prominent scholars, Émile Mâle, Gustave Fougères and René Gabriel Schneider [fr], outlined a specific program for the future institute that would incorporate Doucet's library at the center, surrounded by classrooms that benefit from natural light.

[1]: 52 The building's structure is made of reinforced concrete, and its facades are clad with bright red brick manufactured at the Gournay brickworks on the current municipality of Vitry-sur-Seine.

[6] The unique design carries echoes of Tuscan Renaissance architecture and the Doge's Palace in Venice,[1]: 56–57 , but Bigot's creative reinterpretation has also elicited comparisons with a synagogue, a hammam, a sub-Saharan African kasbah,[1]: 73  the Alhambra in Granada, the Baths of Diocletian and church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli in Rome, among others.

[1]: 105 On the ground level runs a red terracotta frieze, mostly produced at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, that reproduces iconic sculptures whose study was part of the art history curriculum.